Thinking Of You
by Hanspam
Summary: Set in the DT era. What happens when unexpected but not entirely unwelcome thoughts are triggered by a chance meeting? KT
1. Chapter 1

Title: Thinking of You

Author: Hanspam

Contact: Notes: It's been a while…

I have to admit first that I've only seen about 10 minutes of Dino Thunder. All the characterisations of those contained in the series are combinations of other authors' interpretations and my own artistic license. There's no specific time period in which this story is set, however, it's after Trent joins the Ranger team. If there are any errors in detail, I apologise in advance! Please read and review

"_Everything seems right, we don't have to force it" _Reindeer Section – Raindrop

I sat waiting for him for three hours. Some things never change. To be more precise, I sat in a tiny roadside café for three hours and twenty-three minutes, drinking four of their cups of coffee that tasted as though they had been brewed three weeks ago. I rang his cell three times, then gave up, not wanting to be the pushy girl who keeps on ringing even when it slowly becomes obvious that he's just not going to turn up.

I came to that conclusion about an hour into my stay at 'Betty's Roadside Restaurant'. I knew he was never the most punctual person, but he would never have been that late. Why did I stay?

I guess I wanted to be proved wrong. Some tiny part of me had had a sinking feeling ever since we'd agreed to meet that he wouldn't turn up. I contemplated the reasoning behind his no-show for the next two hours.

Revenge for my teenage tantrums? Possibly, but unlikely. As far as I could tell, we'd made peace with that a long time ago. He'd never shown any signs of being embittered, and it would have been a weird time to bring up old hurt, although poetic justice could have been some kind of motivation. Still, it seemed unlikely.

Some kind of work or family emergency? This seemed the most plausible explanation. Maybe that was really why I'd stayed, hoping that he'd see I'd called his cell phone, and he'd return my call with an explanation.

Maybe the real reason I stayed was because I was frozen to my seat, and didn't want to make it screamingly obvious to the clientele that I'd been stood up. So, I read the newspaper, called my mother to catch up, and did everything I could to look as though this was a regular rest stop on my way on a trip out of the state. Just a regular woman stopping off for a break before journeying on to visit her parents, or an old college friend. Anything apart from the desperate woman who spent three hours waiting for someone to show who clearly was never going to turn up.

I thought I'd got away with it, until the ubiquitous Betty called out to me as I left, "Don't worry, hon. Those men are never worth it."

Damn. Am I that transparent?

As I get into my car, ready to drive all the way back home, tracing the steps of what had been an ultimately futile journey, I decide I'm not leaving without letting him know what I think of him. Yes, there may have been a genuine emergency, but he could at least have had the courtesy to let me know. I've just spent the past three hours being leered at and forced to drink burnt coffee, and I'm _not_ the type to suffer quietly.

I dial his number, and go through the now familiar routine of listening to it ring eleven times, before his answering service clicks in. After the beep, I take a deep breath to disguise the fact I'm trying very hard to say something that won't incriminate me later. Then, in a sarcastic tone,

"Thanks so much for letting me know you couldn't attend the meeting we had scheduled today. I had a most enjoyable time getting to know the people who frequent Betty's, and drank some of the finest Italian coffee. Some may say it was a waste of three hours, sitting in a roadside café drinking endless cups of coffee, but I used it as time to decide that if this is the way you're going to play it, then I quit. I'm not going to be messed around."

I click the 'end' button before I get the chance to really let rip. God knows why, as he's the only person who would listen to his messages, and there should be nothing to stop me from telling him what I really think of him at this moment in time.

But is there something inside me that doesn't want to push him too far away, in case he doesn't come back?

God help me. I'm seventeen all over again. This was not supposed to happen.

Despite me knowing it's the worst possible thing to do, as I drive back onto the freeway, I let my mind start to wander back to how this all came about. Who would have thought that a trip to a stationery store would have brought such turmoil?

_Kim_

Two weeks earlier

I thought the whole point of being an advertising executive was that you didn't have to go out and buy your own marker pens. Unfortunately, job descriptions that they give you at the interview, and what you're actually expected to do, very rarely coincide. We've been given an account to pitch for, some sports power drink which I know from experience gives very little advantage apart from giving your skin a tinge of blue. All the blue pens we've found in the building have either run out or are the wrong shade, so I've run down to the store the next block down for reinforcements. The draft of the pitch has to be completed that night, and time's running out fast.

That's my excuse when I trip over a non-existent rip in the carpet and have to grab onto the nearest person for balance. He happens to be unimpressed by the fall, and turns around to stare at me in outrage.

"Watch where you're going, little lady. This is a Gucci jacket," he nearly snarls. I could make a few choice remarks about overreaction – after all, it's not as though I knocked him over, and there are no marks on his jacket. Instead, I play the polite card, and say sweetly,

"I'm terribly sorry. It must be the heat outside… it's making me dizzy." The man in question is fifty if he's a day and is sweating profusely due to the early June heat. There is no-one on this earth I would least like to flirt with, but I need to get back to work, and I have a feeling that "Get over it, it's not as though I ripped your precious jacket," would detain me here for longer than I want. Luckily, he just leers slightly, and then turns back to examining the various types of graph paper the store has to offer. I don't even want to know, but apparently another customer is finding this interchange more amusing than necessary, if the chuckling I can vaguely hear from behind me is anything to go by.

I'm annoyed at people for overreacting, I'm sweltering from the heat, and I'm stressed due to the sudden need for blue marker pens the department has suddenly developed without gaining the corresponding inclination to go down to the store to get them themselves. Can you really blame me for pivoting on my heel and snapping,

"Watch it, or it'll be your jacket next, and this time I don't care if it's a Gucci, it won't be leaving the store intact."

Yes, you probably can blame me for that. If I had only looked up, maybe I wouldn't have been so hasty to speak…

_Tommy_

I never venture into the city if I can help it. As I've grown older, something inside me has changed into appreciating the quietness of the country, or if not the country, then something more approaching suburbia than city life. Living on an island for so long changed my outlook somewhat, and when I finally finished my PhD, I knew I'd be better suited to teaching in a smaller school than a big city high school.

Unfortunately, I had to drive up to Surfside that Thursday afternoon to pick up a book I'd ordered on a new theory of the extinction of the dinosaurs. More interesting than it sounds, but the store was small and wanted me to pick it up in person. When they heard I was making the trip up to the city after school, Kira, Ethan, Trent and Conner became very vocal about sudden shopping needs, and begged to be taken along. I eventually got it through to them that their finals were more important, and took down a list of things that all claimed they couldn't live another day without. No promises were made, but I told them if I happened to pass a store that might sell one of the items, I'd go in.

On the way to the bookstore I'd noticed a stationery store that might have sold some of the art supplies Trent had asked me to look out for. Once I'd collected the book, I walked back to the store I'd seen, and paced up and down the aisles looking for a certain style of paper, and some fancy watercolour pencils. I guess he was looking to branch out once finals were over and graduation just around the corner.

The pencils were easy enough to find, and I made my way over to the paper section to track down the exact type that Trent wanted. I had just stepped into the walled aisle, when from somewhere not too far away, I heard the unmistakeable sound of someone falling flat on their face, then raised voices. A guy yelled something about a Gucci jacket and then a woman retaliated.

It was with a mixture of amusement, shock and wariness, that I slowly realised the voice belonged to someone I knew well, and who obviously hadn't lost her talent for being able to get out of a difficult situation. I stepped back out of the aisle, the paper all but forgotten, to witness Kim extricating herself from having to pay for the non-existent damage to the guy's jacket, and couldn't help but chuckle at how so many incidental things change in life, but the fundamentals still stay more or less the same.

I guess the chuckle may not have been such a good idea, as her anger displaced itself, and came to rest on me… She didn't actually look at me until her tirade came to an end, and then her face turned redder than I have ever seen it, including the time Trini spilled girls' secrets at the end of a night out about five years ago.

"…Whoops. It's you," she said, looking extremely confused once the embarrassment had begun to fade. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking at who I was yelling at…"

"It's okay," I reassured her. "Although from the sounds of it, the guy you tripped over got off easy, if that anger's anything to go by."

She shook her head, looking down at the floor, and then raised her head back up to meet my eyelevel. "What the hell are you doing in Surfside, anyway? The last I heard, you were on some island that got blown up and had gone back to finish your PhD someplace upstate. I thought it was going to take years to put everything back together."

"The last I heard of you, you were in Boston trying to get a graphic design career off the ground," I retaliated. "I think it's safe to say neither of us expected to bump into the other in a stationery store in Surfside, of all places. I managed to finish my PhD pretty quickly considering the damage done, and I'm teaching up in Reefside. How about you?"

Why didn't I hint to her that there were other things going on in my life? I have no idea. I couldn't blurt out in the middle of the store that I was the leader of the new Ranger team, but I could have dropped pretty broad hints that she'd have been able to pick up easily. It would have saved so much awkwardness later on, but for whichever reason I kept quiet.

"Um, I work just around the corner. In advertising. Boston didn't have many opportunities so I decided to come back to the West Coast, and got a job here pretty quickly," she said quietly, passing five or six blue marker pens from one hand to another. "I came back about four months ago."

Interesting. Surely she'd have mentioned if Jason or one of the others had told her about my latest side-job? I knew she fell off the radar a little at the end of high school and very beginning of college, but when Zack and Trini came back they managed to reunite the group without any major trauma, and we'd all been getting on well. The only reason I hadn't mentioned my new role to everyone was that there was never enough time, and I had assumed Jason would pass on the news for me. "Do you want to get a coffee or something? Catch up?"

She tries to surreptitiously check her watch without me seeing, but I notice straightaway, and once more I embarrass her. "I'd love to, but we're working on a pitch, and it has to be finished by this evening. I only came out to get some marker pens that the others suddenly can't live without." She rolls her eyes, and I grin. The momentary fear that it may have been a hasty excuse to avoid seeing me leaves – but why should there be a fear? There hasn't been anything between us for a long time, and I haven't found myself thinking of her for quite a while. So why should I care if she doesn't want to see me? Why am I so happy when I believe her saying she has to get back to work? "How long are you in town for?"

"I only came to pick a book up I'd ordered," I hold up the parcel that had been tucked under my arm as proof. "I was planning on heading home, but needed to pick something up for… a neighbour." Is there a sign of disappointment in her eyes? I'd be very surprised if there wasn't one in mine, which is ridiculous. Unexplainable. So I don't even try. "How long would you have to stay at work?"

"No, I wouldn't want to make you hang around when I have no way of knowing how long I'm going to be," Kim demurs, and there's a tiny something in her eyes – I don't know if she realises it's there, but it seems to be saying there's nothing more she'd rather do.

"Listen, there's a few other things my neighbour asked me to look out for if I had the time. Why don't I take a walk around and try and track a few of the things down, and if you don't give me a call before I'm done, I'll head on home. If you finish before then, we can go get a drink," I suggest. It seems to make sense – Conner, Kira and Ethan would never let me hear the end of it if I picked up what Trent asked for and not their desired items. And it would be good to catch up with an old friend. Kim and I haven't talked for a long time, and since we've made a stable peace with each other, we've always enjoyed each other's company as friends.

"That seems fair, as long as you're sure you don't mind hanging around. I shouldn't be all that long, but you know how creative types can get when things aren't going their way…" Kim warns, and pulls out her cell to take down my number. I dictate it, and I move back into the paper aisle to track down Trent's paper. She follows, and it only takes a few moments for me to find the required size and type, and we join the payment aisle.

"Oh no," Kim mutters under her breath, and I can't help but chuckle again when I realise who we've ended up standing behind – Kim's adversary with the precious jacket. My laugh seems to have a negative effect on everyone who hears it in the store, as the guy turns around upon hearing it, and leers when he sees who's standing behind him.

"Look who it is, it's the little lady who can't help but swoon when she's around me," he says with a definite hint of flirtation, and it's all I can do to stop myself from punching the guy.

Not that it's because the comment's directed at Kim. I'd do the same for any of my female friends. But yeah, I'll admit it – the fact that it _is _Kim exacerbates my anger towards him. Luckily for me, Kim hasn't lost her sharp tongue, and smiles sweetly at the guy while saying,

"Of course, it could be your unmistakeable scent that's causing me to lose consciousness very rapidly ever time I'm around you, but I don't really want to meet you a third time to find out."

Jacket Man splutters and snorts a bit, but is prevented from retaliating when the cashier calls him to the checkout, and he is forced to move away. Kim and I giggle, and I swear, it feels like old times. Which is something I never expected to feel again…

_Kim_

We part outside the store, he to try and find some new brand of soccer boots and me to go back to work. I didn't ask about this 'neighbour' and why he was at their (her?) beck and call. I shouldn't even want to know…

Except how the hell am I ever meant to concentrate on work now? If I'm not mistaken, there was a definite hint of chemistry, and that's something that hasn't been there between us for quite some time.

There was still a kind of spark between us when the whole Murianthius scenario took place, but I for one had no inclination to act upon it. I was with Josh and perfectly happy, and he was with Kat, and seemed to be as content as I was. Although I never saw him through his short-lived racing career, once he settled down and started college I heard of him often through Jason, and as soon as all of us were online and back on the continent group emails did the rounds on a regular basis. Occasional meetings took place, which became more frequent once the majority of us were on the West Coast, but then I took a job in Boston and fell out of the loop a little.

I have to shake myself out of this and get whatever needs doing done as quickly as possible, so I can meet an old friend for a coffee. That's all it is…

During the rest of the short walk back to my building, I determinedly think about the weather, what I have in the house that could possibly make an edible dinner, and whether I'll have enough time off in the near future to drive down to Stone Canyon and visit my brother. What point is there in dwelling on something which I'm obviously imagining? It's been ten years since we dated, and although there's no denying it was great while it lasted, neither of us are the same person we once were. We've grown apart, but if my women's intuition isn't failing me, there seems to be some kind of hint there may be common ground still.

No. Think of the new pair of shoes you desperately want but can't afford. Even better, think of this pitch that needs to be finished and just right before you can leave the office tonight. If that doesn't get done, then you'll lose your job before you've been there six months, and will be forced to trawl the country looking for work. That would not be ideal.

One short elevator ride later and I'm back in Alletsons & Dobson advertising offices. This pitch isn't the biggest one the agency has ever gone for, but they're looking for it to reverse a downward trend the company has recently fallen into. And I, as a newbie, am expected to play a big part in this. No time for distractions…

"The cavalry has arrived… how far have you got?" I see pairs of eyes staring back at me mutinously, and I let them. These people are going to work quicker and with more application than I've seen them do yet… I'm not letting Tommy leave this city before we have a chance to catch up. That's all it is. Just a conversation between friends…

_Tommy_

The kids had better pay me back the money I've just shelled out for all this junk I've bought them.

Trent's demands were the most reasonable of the four, which seemed typical as he was still the least outgoing of the four… he remained somewhat quiet and reserved, due in no small part to the way in which he had joined the team, I know. As for the three who preceded him; they have contributed to the blisters I'm sure are forming on my feet from pounding Surfside's streets for the past hour and a half.

Ethan wanted some computer game which he would otherwise have had to buy from the Internet, except like every other kid at the high school, when he wanted something, he wanted it _now_. Buying a computer game isn't beyond me, but standing listening to the sales clerk enthuse about the new version of a completely different game, assuming I'll understand, began to grate on my nerves somewhat. Twenty minutes later (or it may have been two, I was too polite to look at my watch but the time seemed to drag forever) I was out of the shop and on to look for Conner's boots.

Apparently, buying a pair of boots is not as easy as one would have thought. This is all I have to say on this, somewhat traumatic, matter.

And as for buying some rare CD for Kira… the items the guys had asked me to pick up were twenty times easier than attempting to find a CD by some female singer-songwriter that I had never heard of. Sure I enjoy music, but I'd never heard of this person, and was somewhat reluctant to ask for help. So, I ended up spending an hour in three CD stores before I finally found what Kira had asked me to look for.

After the traumatic experience, I decide I deserve something for me. I passed a menswear store on my travels, and I could do with something new to wear for work. I'd forgotten the trials of what to wear each day in high school, and the kids seem to notice what their teachers are wearing, so it'd be useful to have something extra to keep in my rotation of clothing.

Standing in the shirt section, trying to decide between the grey and the blue shirt, the sound of my phone ringing comes as something of a shock. I pull it out of my jacket pocket and see an unfamiliar number on the display screen, which must be Kim's. I flip the phone open, and say "Hello?"

"Hey. I should be done in about thirty minutes, and just wondered if you were still here or on your way back?" She sounds… rushed, maybe? Or nervous? Hard to tell.

"No, I'm still here. The shopping list my neighbour gave me was harder to finish than I thought it would be, so I should still be around in half an hour." Who are you kidding, Oliver? You'd go back to the sports store and endure another half-hour of embarrassment if it meant seeing Kim at the end of it.

Whoa. Where did _that_ thought come from?

"Okay. Did you see a little café place called Gino's once you left the stationery shop?"

My memory's a lot better than it used to be, and I can confidently tell her, "The one between the florists and the bookstore?"

She laughs, and says lightly, "I'm never going to get used to this new and improved memory, you know. Do you want to meet me there in about forty-five minutes? I'll shout you a latte to apologise for yelling insults at you in the middle of a crowded room."

"With an offer like that, how can I resist?" Seriously, why are these words coming out of my mouth before I have time to think them through? Is my mind operated by a completely different system to that of my mouth? I meant to say 'Sure, that'll be fine, see you there', but completely missed the target.

"See you there then. I'll call if I'm held up, but it shouldn't be a problem."

And there the phone call ended, and that's why I'm currently holed up in what looks to be a family-run coffee shop with more soul than any of the many corporate places which line the city's streets, after finally choosing the grey shirt to make me look more distinguished in my role as a teacher. I've disobeyed Kim and already bought myself a coffee, but am concentrating on studying the back of the book I originally came to the city for. Anything to avoid contemplating why someone I hadn't thought of for years has suddenly taken over my mind.

I wouldn't say we were close friends, but that was more to do with the distance between us than any real animosity. Whenever we've seen each other, it's been like old times, except without the whole agenda of high school dating and all the shit that comes with it. We were both in college pretty near each other, and saw each other once or twice a semester. I met her boyfriend, she saw Kat, and once that ended, Megan. After that, I carried on with studying while she left the West Coast once more in search of work. The only real communication we had was through the group emails which circulated from time to time, and whenever either of us had a spare minute, we'd sometimes email the other just to chat, or to make light-hearted digs about the weather in Boston, or whether I'd forgotten all about my thesis. Although I never thought it could happen when I was 17 and got the 'letter', we had become like brother and sister.

Except somehow, somewhen, this has all changed. And I have no idea what's triggered it.

I'm too young to be having a midlife crisis. Hell, I'm in the middle of a never-ending mission to save the planet, in case you hadn't noticed. Megan wasn't happy with the amount of time I was spending with Hayley, but it was necessary once we'd found the Dino Gems, and I couldn't risk anyone else being let in on the secret. There would be no problem at all in mentioning that I was back in the business to Kim. But how would we carry on a relationship when I would have to run off every ten minutes to battle aliens and she'd be left at home?

Way ahead of yourself there, Oliver. Stop it, now. Look at the back cover of the book; what attractive font in blue and green, describing the latest theory on why the dinosaurs became extinct… 

"Heads up," I hear a voice from behind me say, and I drop the book as Kim comes around to sit at the other side of the booth near the window I'd chosen. She places her latte on the table, and grins at me. "Too impatient to wait for a drink to be bought for you? You must have been desperate."

"If I can put up with your company, I may stay long enough for you to buy me another one," I retort, and smile as she laughs back. This has been the general tone of our correspondence over the past couple of years, but now that we're seeing each other in person, there's definite chemistry there. I can't have been that dense to have missed it in our emails all this time, can I? We told each other about dates, potential partners, and the failings of the opposite sex. Is that what people do when they're subtly trying to decode the other one? This is far too complicated. Move the conversation on to easier subjects, and attempt to work this out when you've got more time. "Did you get the work done on time?"

She rolls her eyes, and takes a swallow of the drink before answering. "Yes, eventually, but I'm beginning to wonder if these people hired me to oversee those who do the design work, or to be at their beck and call. I was brought in to try and turn the department around, but they're just not letting me at the moment, and if it goes on much longer, it's going to be a problem."

"It sounds like you need to have a talk to your superiors about boundary issues," I advise, but something must have shown on my face, because Kim adopts an expression that shows she's waiting for me to elaborate, and it's my turn to take a drink before I answer. "The principal of the high school where I teach is slightly… over-friendly, shall I say, and it's very close to becoming professional misconduct on her part." It sounds serious when I say it, but Kim immediately bursts into a fit of laughter, and I have to wait for the laughs to subside before she can explain.

"It doesn't change, does it? Even in high school you had Miss Appleby eating out of the palm of your hand, and still the legendary Oliver charm can work its magic on your boss." She grins to show she means no offence, and although it embarrasses me to say it, I can kind of see her point.

"Yeah, but… still, there needs to be some kind of line, doesn't there? If it's crossed, things can get extremely messy." Our eyes meet as I say this, and it dawns on me how my comment could be construed. If she's even feeling the same way as I am. It must be the weather, coupled with the fact that I haven't dated anyone since Megan, and that was over a year ago. Those factors, along with the fact that Kim was my first girlfriend, are just making me feel things that I don't really feel. That's all.

She shrugs, and her expression is blank, leaving me unable to tell whether she's even on my wavelength. "If things don't get any better, I'll have to talk to my boss, because I'm not planning on sticking around to be used as a lackey. From the sounds of it, you should probably talk to someone who can help you with your problem as well." She twists round in her seat to stare at the food counter, and makes it clear that the conversation is closed.

Interesting.

_Kim_

After his little 'crossing the lines' monologue, I do my best to keep our conversation strictly entendre-free. We discuss what it was like to live in this general area, whether it was odd for Tommy being on the other side of the teacher/pupil divide, and how long it has been since we'd seen various members of the group.

"Have you spoken to Jason recently?" Tommy asks, as he plays with his second empty cup, the latte that I promised him having been consumed over the past fifteen minutes. I think we've been sitting in Gino's for forty-five minutes, but I can hardly bring myself to care that I'm bone-tired and would like to get back to my place before Desperate Housewives starts.

"No, I haven't really spoken to anyone for quite a while. There were all kinds of complications with the move to back West, and it kept me busy for the longest time. I've been in Surfside for a while I know, but I had to settle in and the job's been a nightmare to settle in to. I've emailed Trini a couple of times to let her know I'm okay, but apart from that, you're the first person I've talked to since I've been here. It seems like since we all became disparate again, it's getting harder and harder to keep in touch with people."

Is there a hint of something more than comprehension of the bare facts in Tommy's eyes? I can't be sure; it may just be a combination of the coffee and my tiredness making me see things that aren't there. But it looks as though he understands more than just the fact that it's hard to stay in contact with people these days. Whatever else he may have thought isn't reflected in his next phrase, which is,

"I sure know that feeling… and I hate to say this, given what we're talking about, but I'm going to have to start heading back. It's an hour's drive back, and I've got a pop quiz that needs marking to give back to my students tomorrow morning."

Was that a sinking feeling you just felt there, Kim? Don't let it happen again. It was only because you haven't seen any of your old friends for so long. Nothing more. "Sure, I understand. I should probably head home as well, they're going to need me at work early to prepare for the presentation."

We stand up and exit the restaurant, Tommy holding the door open for me as always, which is a not unwelcome reminder of the old times. He scratches the back of his neck, and says, "My car's parked that way.." pointing to the opposite direction to my apartment. I can hardly walk that way, then turn around and walk straight back as soon as he's out of sight, just for the sake of spending a few more minutes with him.

"I live that way," I say, reluctantly pointing in the other direction. "I guess this is where we say goodbye."

Tommy shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, then suddenly brightens as he has an idea. "I have your cell number from you calling me earlier today. I have to come up to Surfside pretty regularly to pick up stuff for school I can't get in Reefside. How about next time I come up I give you a call and we go out to lunch?"

Something as small and insignificant as lunch should not excite me as much as it does. But I'm giving up on examining my feelings, for the moment at least. Maybe he'll call, maybe he won't. We'll just have to see.

"Yeah, I'd like that," I say, trying to betray no emotion. He's looking towards the direction his car is parked, and I have an uncomfortable feeling that I may have misread the signals. After all, it's been a hell of a long time since I've been able to read his thoughts like a favourite novel you read every year, and it could very well be that all this has just been politeness.

Oh well. At the beginning of the day I had no hopes of anything happening between us. When I go to sleep, I'll make damn sure I have no hopes of him calling me. So what if there was a little lapse in between?

He turns back towards me, and smiles sadly, for reasons which I do not understand. "I'll talk to you soon, Kim," he says, and bends down to give me a slight hurried kiss on the cheek before turning and walking quickly away.

I refuse to watch him leave. So I walk slowly back home, trying unsuccessfully to think of how I'll approach my problems at work, whether I need to pick up milk at the grocery store, or whether I need to book a hair appointment in the next couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, all I can think of is him…


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Thanks to Twitch1, Grey17 and Dagmar for reviewing. I have a basic plotline for this which indicates there should be another 4 chapters, but this is subject to change. I wasn't planning on updating so quickly, but inspiration hit me, and here's the second chapter. Please review!

_Kim_

I didn't think he'd call. Sure, I contemplated what it would be like if he did call, and asked to meet up. I wondered if there'd be more almost-flirting, glances from the corner of our eyes, comments left unsaid that should be out in the open while other things better left unsaid were blurted out. But those were thoughts to get me through the day at work, on the same level of probability as me winning the lottery and then getting hit by a golf ball on the head on the same day. Virtually zero.

He only had to go and prove me wrong by calling…

Four days later of course; no self-respecting man calls quickly. The pitch at work had gone as smoothly as could have been expected, and my weekend had been spent alternately sleeping, cleaning my apartment, and trawling various stores in the city in an attempt to buy items to make my house more like a home. I'd daydreamed slightly on Friday but there had been little time amidst the turmoil at work; and idle thoughts of being swept off my feet once more had crossed my mind on occasion during an exceptionally boring Monday morning, spent in meetings about when to have meetings, and general troubleshooting. Not the best time to bring up my unhappiness at the job.

I love Surfside, don't get me wrong. The weather in Boston was beginning to become normal for me, and as a California girl, one should never be away from the sunshine for too long. I'd done about as much as I'd wanted to where I was working, and had approached a headhunter back on the West Coast to find me work somewhere closer to home. So, Surfside it was, and what seemed to be a life deemed to end with me buying marker pens, making coffee and harassing people to do their jobs quicker. Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but it paid the bills, and I was already checking the jobs section of the paper on a regular basis.

However, he's not the first 'school-friend' to get in contact with me today, and I hear my phone ringing from deep inside my purse while I'm working through my lunch break. I manage to grab it before the person on the other end hangs up, and I see on the screen display that it's Aisha. "Hey Eesh, what's happening?"

She sighs on the other end of the phone. "Things are pretty quiet here. I was on my lunch break and thought I'd give you a call, see if you could handle a visitor sometime in the next couple of weeks?"

Aisha sounds more down than I've heard her in a long time, and I sense there's another reason for her visit than just wanting to see me. "You know you're always welcome to stay, especially since we haven't seen each other for such a long time, but why now? I thought you'd just taken some holiday time to go see Adam and Tanya in Detroit."

"I did, and it was great, but…" Another sigh, and she reveals her problems to me. "Rocky's being a major pain in the ass, and I just need to get away for a while. It's like, we've been seeing each other for two years now, and I may have dropped a couple of hints about taking things further. He's been acting completely out of character ever since… he's been really quiet and his food intake has decreased by half."

"We know it must be serious then," I joke, but then turn back into serious mode. If Aisha needs someone to bounce ideas and thought off, then I'm more than happy to oblige. "I understand why you mentioned making a further commitment, but maybe he hadn't thought of it before and just feels a bit claustrophobic? You guys seemed really happy the way you were the last time I came to see you, and it might not have occurred to him that you'd have ended up wanting more."

"I understand that, but it's been six months since you've been out here, and… maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I'm not desperate to get married, and I know I'm not ready to have children. I think what I wanted more than any of that was a reassurance that we were headed in that direction together, as a couple, and I'm not getting that at the moment. I've been thinking about it, and I thought the best way to deal with it is for us to give each other some space, so we can both think things through."

"You're handling this really well," I admire, impressed. "If it were me, I'm sure I'd have flown off the handle and given him an all-or-nothing ultimatum so at least I knew where I stood."

"Believe me, there have been many times where I've wanted nothing more than to do just that," Aisha admits, and I laugh, able only too well to picture her yelling at Rocky to buy her a ring or it would be over. "At the end of the day though, what would it solve? I'm on call next weekend, so I'm looking to come over the weekend after that. How would you feel about a girl's night? If we call Trini and Kat, we could muster up enough people to take the bars of Surfside by storm."

"Excellent idea," I say, and can't resist telling one of my best friends in the world the gossip that's been eating at me for the past four days without anyone to tell it to. "Speaking of old friends… Guess who I ran into in town last Thursday?"

"You saw him?" Aisha squeals down the phone, and I have to hold the phone a couple of millimetres away from my ear to protect myself from the full blast of her speech.

"From your reaction I take it that you knew he was living near me and chose not to tell me?" I ask her, only half-jokingly. So everyone knew and chose to keep me out of the loop? As if I wasn't feeling friendless enough in this city at the moment, where practically the only people I speak to outside of work are the takeout delivery guy and the woman who works at the convenience store at the end of my street. I haven't exactly bonded with my colleagues, who didn't even offer to take me out for drinks when I first arrived. I'm used to being able to make friends easily, so that came as something of a letdown. Still, this time will give me a chance to do some soul-searching, which is hardly inspiring.

Aisha thankfully dials it down a little when she speaks again. "I knew, but I guess I thought he'd have told you already. I know you guys speak a lot, and I assumed you already knew."

"I wouldn't call the occasional email regular contact, but I hear what you're saying. I'll have to beat it out of him why he didn't tell me, I guess." If I ever speak to him again, that is.

"So, what was it like? Give me the gossip?" Aisha demands, and I acquiesce.

"I bumped into him in a stationery store, and we went for a coffee. But it was so strange… I really, honestly thought that we'd got past the whole awkward stage but at times it was like we were flirting again. And there was definitely chemistry there, Eesh, and that hasn't been there for a long time. Even you have to admit that."

There's a pause, and then, "Yeah, when was the last time we were all together, Jason's 28th? You two were more like best friends than anything more whenever you were talking. I wasn't paying close attention to be truthful, but it didn't seem as though you two were suddenly going to rip each other's clothes off."

I grin. "Hardly. Anyway, he took my number and said he'd give me a call if he was coming into the city again. I doubt he will though."

"And why not?" Aisha said, reverting back to the squealing that came naturally to her when she was worked up. "I'm not just saying that because you felt a hint of chemistry, Kim. If it's the same as it was and you two are still just destined to be good friends, or brother and sister, then he'll call. You're the only two living in the immediate vicinity, of course he'll call on you if he needs you."

If he needs me? "Why would you say he'll call me if he needs me?" I ask curiously, perplexed at Aisha's choice of words. There's an empty pause at the end of the line.

"I don't think I meant to say if he needs you, Kim. Why would he need you? You know, unless you've somehow developed an extensive knowledge in all things paleontological. I meant to say he'd call if he wants to talk, or wants to meet. That's all I meant." Is it my imagination, or does she suddenly sound slightly flustered? That's odd… "Anyway, Kim, I gotta go, my 1 o'clock's due any second and I have to mentally prepare myself for dealing with a flea-infested cat."

"I really didn't need that mental image, especially when I can't reciprocate with one of my own," I say. "What am I meant to do, say I'm psyching myself up for dealing with going through the budget for next month? That's hardly going to induce the same amount of revulsion."

"Ah, but if you're not a maths person it will," Aisha points out. "So, I'll call you in the next week or so and tell you when I'm coming to visit."

"Don't do something rash before then and ruin this," I warn her. "You and Rocky are the real deal, you'll find a way to work it out."

"I remember saying the same thing about a certain other couple about ten years ago," Aisha says wryly. "Talk to you soon, Kim."

So I hang up the phone and continue my work, all the time thinking of what Aisha has said to me. Even if it were a slip of the tongue, why would she say that Tommy would call if he _needed_ me? How about if he wanted me? _Needed_ seems a strange word to choose. And having relationship problems couldn't be the best situation for Aisha to be in. She and Rocky had always seemed so strong in their relationship; it seems strange to think about them as being on shaky ground or in trouble. I have every faith that they can work it out, but whether they will is another matter entirely.

Everyone comes back into the office at around 2 o'clock, and work continues around me until 3.30, when my cell phone rings again. I pick it up from the place where I'd thrown it upon finishing the call to Aisha, and don't recognise the number which is calling me. I answer "Hello?" in a wary tone; not expecting to hear the voice on the other end of the line…

Tommy 

I didn't mean to call her.

Actually, that's a lie. The weekend was pretty quiet; I spent it marking the pop quizzes I'd sprung on my students on Friday as a way to work off the frustration I'd felt at seeing Kim on Thursday evening. I don't think they were impressed at two pop quizzes in a week, but it was a way to keep them on their toes, and hell, it made me feel better. I gave up counting the times I picked up my cell phone and let my finger hover over the 'call' button whenever her number was displayed on the screen. For some reason, I never pressed the button, and never trusted myself to speak to her. What would I say? "I know we've been best friends for the past three years, but how about a date on Friday night?" "I hate going into the city, but I'd go there everyday if it meant giving me a chance to see you?" "I don't understand what I'm feeling, but I can't stop it?"

This is way more than the high-school crush we shared in our teenage years. I don't think I can understand it; even less stop it. That was the argument I used for calling her, but somehow sense managed to prevail until Monday afternoon.

Nobody likes Mondays. Even though my weekend was spent sedately, nothing untoward happening to distract me from the mundane aspects of life, I would still have preferred to have an eternal weekend as opposed to going back to school and spending six hours of my day trying to explain scientific matters to classes of kids who really couldn't care less. I wasn't in a bad mood, just a kind of mood where nothing is good and nothing is bad. Kind of like the moods my students seem to have when faced with the details of scientific phenomena.

Trent, Kira, Ethan and Conner were in my sixth period class, and god knows how, could tell that something was up. So, when the bell rang to signal the end of the period, they didn't join the mass exodus with the rest of their classmates, but sidled up to my desk.

"What's up, Dr. O? You didn't seem as enthusiastic about the…" Conner trailed off, trying to think of an accurate description of the Big Bang. "Big, bang.. stuff?"

"Yeah, because that makes so much sense, Conner," Kira said, and shoved him in the side with her notebook hard enough to make him yell, and rub his ribs.

"When did you get so strong?" Kira rolled her eyes, and made me smile when she said,

"Duh, about the same time you did?" Ethan jumped into the conversation while Conner stood with a slightly vacant expression, trying to decipher Kira's comment.

"Dr. O, are you ok? Has anything, you know, happened? That we need to know about, I mean?"

I'm annoyed that they can tell something's wrong, but also slightly touched. Not that I'd ever admit it, and I would never tell them what was going on. "Thanks for your concern, but nothing's wrong. Don't you guys have classes you should be getting to, anyway?"

"Are we having a training session after school?" Trent asked quietly, as my next class of students began to trudge into the classroom.

"Yeah, same time, same place. Now get along to your next class, or we'll all be in trouble." The four of them reluctantly turn to leave, Kira looking over her shoulder as if to reassure herself that I'm okay, only for her attention to be drawn away as Conner yells, "So **that's** what you meant!"

I can stand the suspense for the last tortuous class, but while I'm tidying up my things and getting ready to leave, I suddenly cannot resist the impulse to call her. Even though it's just before half 3, hopefully she'll be free to talk. Although, if I remain as nervous as I have inexplicably become, it might be best if I get her answering service.

Once my classroom has emptied out for the hour, I sit on my desk and pull my cell phone out of my briefcase. I'm about to dial her number, when the door opens and Principal Randall walks in. Shit.

"Dr. Oliver, how refreshing to find a young teacher who feels it permissible to sit on his desk and talk to the children as though you're one of them," she says smoothly, and I wince. "I was wondering if you'd had a chance to think about how you wish to approach the next Parent's Evening. As you know, I wanted a more relaxed approach this year, I thought maybe you would have volunteered to be one of the teachers who made a presentation about their subject. Is there any chance I can persuade you?"

Not really, but I have a feeling I'm going to end up saying yes, anyway. I wasn't exactly paying attention during the meeting where she talked about this, but even if I had been, I'm too busy to prepare a presentation, what with saving the universe on a twice-weekly basis as well as being a teacher. Then again, she'll make my life hell if I don't do this, so the path of least resistance has got to be the way to go. "I guess I could prepare something, but I don't really have the time for it to be a detailed presentation. Would a 2 minute speech be enough?"

She raises one eyebrow, and something about it makes my skin crawl. I can't really work out why, but something about this woman sets my teeth on edge, and it's not just the contempt she doesn't even bother to hide for her job, her colleagues and her students. It's not even the flirtation that she still likes to throw my way from time to time. I have no idea why I can't stand the woman, and that makes me hate her even more. "Perhaps if you find the time, you could also prepare some visual aids to make it more… stimulating. That will be all." And with that nasty little dose of sarcasm, she turns to leave, but then pivots on her heel and looks back at me to say, "And don't make a habit of sitting on the desk," before she leaves.

That meeting has left me with a nasty taste in my mouth, but it hasn't put me off from my mission. At least if I call Kim, I'll know one way or the other whether we'll be seeing each other again in the near future, and can begin to pull myself together. It took all my self-control not to pick up the phone over the weekend and ask her if she had plans, but the control has run out, and I need to know.

This time I manage to dial her number, and her phone rings five times with no-one answering. I'm about to psych myself up to leave a calm and collected message for her, but then she answers. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Tommy." Nice start. She'll probably have seen your name on the call-display of her phone, so there was no need to say your name, but am I being presumptuous in thinking that she may have stored my number?

She laughs. "Yeah, I saw your name on the display. So, what's up? Another long day of teaching over and done with and thought you'd rub it in that I can't go home for another two hours?"

I smile, and settle myself so I'm sitting more comfortably on the desk. She always did have a knack of making conversations that could potentially be nasty much more easier. "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Even though I have to go home and prepare lesson plans for the next seven hours." Why am I not telling her I'm a Ranger again? Come to think of it, it isn't really something you can break to someone over the phone. We'll have to meet again so I can tell her. I seriously would have thought that someone else would have told her by now, but it was obvious from our meeting on Thursday that she's oblivious. I wonder what's going on there…

"Okay, so I don't have to kill you. Good. Did you have a good weekend?"

"If you can call marking six batches of pop quizzes fun. I was in a bad mood on Friday morning," I tell her, careful to avoid telling her that she was inadvertently the cause of such turmoil, "and it seemed a good idea at the time to take out the frustration on my students. I didn't exactly think it through, and kind of forgot that although giving them out would feel good at the time, I'd actually have to mark them at the end." Embarrassing, but so sadly true.

"Now, why doesn't that surprise me?" Kim giggles. This conversation is good. It's relaxed. It's not tense, we're not sitting opposite each other with me shooting glances at her to try and work out if she's been looking at me too. Excellent.

"How about you, how did you spend your weekend?"

She sighs, and I can almost picture her rolling her eyes at the other end of the phone. A tone of voice can tell so much when you can't see the person speaking, especially when you know someone as well as I know Kim. "I spent it cleaning my apartment, and then trawling the city looking for things to make it look nicer. I guess neither of us have been living the high life."

There's definitely despondence in that tone, and I can begin to work out why. She's always had friends surrounding her; even in Florida and Boston she made friends easily. But she's been in Surfside for a few months now, and she's never mentioned a friend there. I don't really know what to say, whether I should broach the subject with her or not. I settle for a light-hearted approach in an attempt to cheer her up. "I guess it's because we're getting old, the appeal of going to bars and clubs kind of wears off when all you'd rather do is sleep."

It works, thank god. "I know the feeling. I got a call from Aisha this lunchtime though; she's going to spend a weekend with me in a couple of weeks. I think she's having problems with Rocky and needs to get away for a while."

This surprises me, the last time I spoke to Rocky he'd said everything was going well. Then again, I'd had no reason to doubt him. "I had no idea they were having trouble. Does it sound serious?"

"I really don't know. I think Aisha's looking for something more solid to prove that Rocky's willing to commit permanently to her. I know they're in an exclusive relationship and all, but she's looking for something a little more tangible, voiced her opinions – loudly, if I know Eesh – and now she's scared she's asked for more than he can give."

Interesting. "Has he said anything about it?"

"I get the impression he's skirting around the subject while he tries to get his thoughts into order," Kim says dryly, and I smirk in sympathy – Rocky isn't the only one avoiding an issue. "Anyway, Aisha's coming up to see me in two weeks time, and I can't wait. I hardly see anyone these days, and I haven't seen her for such a long time, we'll have so much to catch up on."

"Speaking of seeing people, are you doing anything on Wednesday?" The words slip off my tongue before my mind has a chance to process them and reject them as being too forward, too blunt, and too generally wrong. What am I doing? If I drive all the way up to the city only to be called back for a monster attack, how am I supposed to make my excuses if I haven't told her yet, and how am I supposed to get all the way back into Surfside? But a little voice in my head is speaking, and it's telling me that I can't use my Ranger life as a shield to avoid my personal life. Kim's obviously lonely, I have nothing in particular to do on Wednesday afternoon, and it makes sense that two old friends would use this time to catch up when there's less time restriction, seeing as before Thursday we hadn't seen each other for quite a while.

If I look hard enough, I'll always find reasons not to see her. I don't know if disregarding these reasons is a good or a bad thing, but it's done now, and I'll have to live with the consequences, whatever they turn out to be. If there's an attack, I'll have to leave. End of story.

"Wednesday? Hang on a second…" There's a pause on the other end of the line, and I can faintly hear the rustlings of pages being turned near to the phone. I kick my heels absently against my desk until Kim's voice comes back on the line. "Wednesday is good, I don't seem to have anything pencilled into my hectic social calendar. Where do you want to meet, though? You met me in Surfside last time, even though by chance, so I could drive up to Reefside after I finish up at work if you want."

It would be easier that way I guess, in case there's an emergency and I have to make my excuses quickly, but I finish work at least two hours earlier than Kim, and it would take her another hour at least to drive here. No, it would be much easier for me to make the journey to Surfside while she's still at work, and then maybe wait at the café we were at on Thursday until she can get out of work. "The offer's appreciated, but it'd make sense if I drove up to the city while you were at work, and then met you once you got out. Otherwise you'd have to battle the rush-hour, and you'd barely have arrived before it would be time for you to leave again."

"I hadn't even thought of that. I'll see if I can leave an hour early, but I can't make any promises knowing this madhouse. Do you want to just go for a coffee again, or shall I find something more exciting in Surfside that may deserve our attention?" Kim snorts slightly, and I grin. "Not that I've found anything yet in six months of trying, but we'll see."

"It sounds like a plan," I tell her, and then look at the clock mounted on my classroom's door and grimace. I was meant to be back at my place by now to get started on another training session, and given the team's concern earlier, I'm surprised they haven't been inundating my communicator with messages. "Listen, I'm going to have to go. How about I try to find Dino's on Wednesday, and you give me a call when you get out of work?" I jump off the desk and grab my briefcase with one hand, to start walking out of my classroom.

"You're going to have to get the name right unless you want to wait for me in some imaginary café in an alternate dimension," Kim says lightly, and I mentally kick myself – thinking of the Dino Rangers must have meant I said Dino's instead of Gino's when referring to the café.

"Gino's, I meant Gino's," I backtrack hastily.

"Yeah, whatever, I'm sure you did. Shouldn't your memory have improved when you became a teacher?" She doesn't give me a chance to retort to this jibe. "Listen, get back to whatever it is you're supposed to be doing instead of talking to me, and I'll see you Wednesday."

I never thought I'd be glad for my reputation as someone who would forget their head if it weren't screwed on. "You know my memory, Kim. See you Wednesday."

"Bye." She clicks off the phone as I throw open the school doors and walk across the parking lot to my Jeep, all the while letting out the breath I hadn't noticed I'd been holding. After all, the conversation had gone well. She hadn't even questioned why I'd suggested the meeting, which surely meant she felt it was a natural thing for us to meet for a coffee in the middle of the week. The talking had flowed well; there were no awkward pauses or slips of the tongue that couldn't be covered.

Yes, that was a success, I think as I turn the ignition and pull out of the school grounds. At least now I can face the interrogation by the Rangers and not completely incriminate myself…

Kim 

There's been a spring in my step the past two days, and I don't even want to delve deep into my psyche to find out why. I think I could get used to being proved wrong if it makes me this happy. My happiness hasn't spread into being any more comfortable in my job, but I have a tiny plan in the back of my mind as to how to act upon this, and it's reassuring me that if I stay in the job for a while longer, things may get better.

Oh, who on earth am I kidding? I'm ecstatically happy that he rang, even more so that he suggested we meet so soon after our initial rendezvous, and am going insane that I have no-one to talk to over this. So, I do what any normal girl would do, and ring one of her best friends from the ladies' restroom before leaving the building on Wednesday afternoon to go meet Tommy at Gino's. Unless, of course, he's mixed it up with some non-existent café called Dino's and is futilely wandering the streets looking for it. Let's hope not.

"Trini? It's me," I hiss into the phone, perched on one of the sinks in our floor's bathroom. "How do you wear your hair if you're not sure if you're going on a date but really, really, want it to be one?"

Maybe I should have elaborated; filled her in on the back-story before getting to the heart of the matter. I can't blame her for being completely confused, and saying, "Run that by me again, Kim. You're not sure if you're going out but really want it to be a date? With who? And why is this the first I'm hearing of it?"

I look at my watch. I really shouldn't be late, but at the same time, I could really use Trini's input on this. I decide to throw caution to the wind and take any abuse Tommy could throw at me as to my lateness. "I ran into Tommy while shopping last week, we went for coffee, things were all… I don't know, sparky, which hasn't happened between us since we were actually dating. Which was in high school. And now we're best friends, and I don't get why this chemistry has suddenly chosen to reappear. But anyway. Nothing's actually happened, but he called on Monday and said did we want to meet on coffee on Wednesday. Wednesday is now, he's probably waiting for me right now, and as you may or may not be able to tell, I'm slightly nervous. So how the hell am I supposed to wear my hair?"

I do not need Trini to be giggling uncontrollably on the other end of the line, but giggle away she does. I leave her to finish, knowing that anything I say is liable to set another cascade of laughter into motion. Eventually, after what seems like a lifetime but probably is not, she hiccups, and says, "Sorry. That was uncalled for, but extremely necessary. So, you're telling me that after ten years of being nothing but friends, no unrequited lust or simmering crush, you bumped into him on the street last week and suddenly you're acting like a teenager again?"

Damn Trini and her voice of reason. "It wasn't on the street, it was in a stationery store," I mumble mutinously, unable to deny anything else that she said.

"Doesn't it sound as though you were just caught unawares at seeing him again? If you're still unsettled in your new job, it might be that you were so glad to see an old friend, that old feelings which are dead and buried came rushing back, not necessarily meaning that those feelings are still valid?"

"So why do I feel as though I'm seventeen again?" I demand of Trini, knowing that she's explained away my feelings in a nutshell, but unwilling to accept that the cause of my feelings is nothing more than loneliness. "And you can say I was imagining it, but I'm almost sure he felt the same way too."

"I can't explain his feelings," Trini says patiently, "but if you're supposed to be seeing him now, go and see him. Act normally, as though you're just friends, as you have been for the last ten years with no problems, in case you'd forgotten that. And then come home and tell me all about it."

As much as I hate to admit it, it's slowly dawning on me that Trini's explanation really could explain away a lot. I guess it can come in useful that I have a qualified psychiatrist as a best friend. "Okay," I sigh, and move away from the sink. "But you still haven't answered my question. How should I wear my hair?"

I don't need to be in the same room as Trini to know that she is rolling her eyes to the heavens and wondering how I can be almost thirty and still act like a teenager. If she ever finds the answer, I'd like to know it. "I guess wear it loose, then you can flick it behind your shoulders if things are going the way you apparently want them to, or hide behind it if you've said something embarrassing."

Trini is always handy with the practicalities. "Thanks, and sorry. I'll give you a call when I get home tonight, to let you know how stupid I've been, no doubt. Give my love to Jase when you see him, and give a big kiss to my niece and tell her I'll give her a present when I see her mother for a girl's night out that I have a feeling her auntie Aisha is planning."

"We'll see," Trini says darkly. "Good luck, Kim."

We hang up, and I pull my hair out of the band that has secured it in a ponytail for the past nine hours, and shake it loose. Trini's right, it would serve as a useful curtain if things go wrong – for the past few years I've worn it slightly below my shoulders, and the latest shade I've gone for is a few shades darker than my natural colour. I thought it would make me look professional for my new job, unfortunately the only way I'd gain their attention would be to dye my hair orange, or so it seems. A quick application of lip-gloss later, and I'm ready to roll.

I don't exactly run to Gino's, but I don't walk sedately either, and I manage to make it there only ten minutes after I was due to finish. Tommy's already commandeered the booth that we sat in last week, and I explain away my lateness before he gets the chance to mock me by saying quickly, "Sorry, sorry. My boss caught me just as I was packing up to leave, and I had to pretend to be interested for fifteen minutes until he ran out of things to say." A white lie, but I couldn't tell him I'd been yelling at my oldest friend for beauty advice while he was waiting. He seems to buy the fib easily enough anyway.

"It wasn't a problem, I didn't exactly get here on time myself," he admits sheepishly. "I got held up at school too, and I only got here about two minutes ago, hence no drinks." He sweeps his arm across to indicate the empty table. "I'll go, what do you want?"

"A latte, please," I ask, and take time to collect my thoughts while he goes to order and collect our drinks. Friendly drinks. Drinks between friends. I didn't even notice how good he looked, and didn't even bother to ponder whether he'd been marking the pop quizzes he'd mentioned on Monday out in the sun. Things like that don't interest Kim, the best friend, in the slightest. Not at all.

He returns with a latte for me and a cappuccino for him, and slides back into the booth. I busy myself with adding two packets of sugar to my drink, desperately trying to think of something people having friendly drinks say to each other, while pointedly not looking at him. I eventually realise I've been stirring the sugar into my drink for longer than most people would deem necessary, and sneak a glance up at Tommy, only to find him already staring at me incredulously.

I stare back. This staring goes on for longer than is probably polite, although it does give me a chance to reacquaint myself with the tiny flecks of hazel in his eyes, and to notice that it looks as though he didn't get a chance to shave this morning, unless the stubble's there for a reason. The staring looks as though it could continue for a while, and according to Trini this has to stop. I clear my throat, and say, "I can't even explain it by saying I read in a magazine that if you stir sugar into a drink for a full minute the calories disappear."

He smiles slightly. "Unlike the time where you swore blind that if you chewed each mouthful one hundred times, it somehow squashed the calories and made everything you ate calorie-free?"

I shrug. "I still haven't read anything that contradicts it," I say, and raise an eyebrow before smirking to let him know that I'm joking. He smirks back, but then we lapse once more into silence. He's staring past me into the main area of the café, and I take this opportunity to study his expression in an attempt to work out exactly where we stand. His mouth is slightly turned down at the corners, but not so much to form a frown, more as though he's deep in thought about something, which is correlated by the slightly vacant expression in his eyes. If I'm being completely honest with myself, I could sit here and look at him staring past me all day and not get bored with the view, but other customers might start to think we were strange. I'm already worried that we look odd enough as it is by not talking to each other, so after about two minutes of silence, I attempt to bring him out of it. "What held you up at school?" I ask, and take a sip of my well-stirred latte. He starts noticeably, and then blushes.

"Sorry Kim… I guess my mind was elsewhere. What did you say?"

"What held you up at school?" I repeat.

"Oh, uh… do you remember I told you the principal of the school where I teach was harassing me a little?" I nod. "She kinda cornered me into preparing a speech about science for Parent's Night, and then at my lunch break she told me she wanted to see it after school ended. I really couldn't say no to her, she could make my job very difficult for me, so I spent my lunch writing a hastily cobbled speech, and then spent forty-five minutes after school ended hearing why it wasn't good enough. All the while, knowing damn well that it wasn't good enough, but not being able to say I knew it was appalling, but I'd written it in ten minutes after she reminded me to do it." He shrugs, and gulps down about half his coffee in one mouthful. It all sounds very plausible, and I know about the pressure of deadlines as much as anyone, but something's not right with that story, and I'm not entirely sure what. I noticed an almost invisible flicker in his eye when I asked him what had held him up – something that a regular person probably wouldn't be able to see, but I've known him for almost 15 years, and I can tell better than most when he's hiding the truth. Then again, what right have I to call him on it? I may be one of his best friends, but if he wants to hide things from me, then I don't feel like I have much right to prise out the truth. I never have done, ever since we repaired our friendship after I broke up with him to go out with Josh. He tells me what he wants to, and I do the same. It's the way we work.

Playing along with what I'm almost sure is a lie, I grin and suggest, "So shouldn't you be back at your place writing this speech about dinosaurs instead of drinking coffee here with me?"

"It's not a backhanded compliment, but I'd much rather be here with you," he admits, not

that that surprises me. If he'd rather be at home writing a dinosaur speech, then why would I even bother? He pauses, and his mouth opens slightly as though to say something else, but he thinks better of it, and grabs his cup again, this time succeeding in finishing his drink. He places the cup back on the table as I'm about to take another sip of my latte, and asks suddenly, "Do you want to get out of here, maybe go for a walk somewhere?"

"Sure. Do you want to go for a walk past the shops, or to a park, where?" I ask, hoping that the mention of anything to do with shopping will bring him out of his suddenly introspective mood. It works, as it always used to do, and he shudders as I finish my drink and stand up. He stands up after me, and says,

"I know what's good for me, and shopping with you definitely isn't. A park, did you say? How about there?"

"Sure, there's one near my building." We leave the café, and I begin to ponder. So far, we've had what could have been a lie, a period of staring, and insulting my shopping habits. Not the best start to a day out, but then again, things can really only go better…

Tommy 

I'm absolutely exhausted, and have no idea why I suggested a walk. I'm pretty certain Kim figured out I was lying about being detained about Principal Randall, and equally sure that she has no idea of the real reason why I was slightly detained. Luckily, the fight lasted for a shorter period than usual, and a hastily-fabricated lie about a doctor's appointment meant I curtailed the post-fight team talk in order to hightail it up to Surfside. I haven't been much company now I've arrived; so far I've managed to stare at Kim long enough that she noticed, and stare past her long enough that she noticed. Oh, and lie to her, because I can't tell her I'm a Ranger once again in a public place where she will loudly voice her disbelief and people will hear.

I spoke to Jason yesterday. I asked him if he knew whether Kim was aware I was back in uniform, and he seemed startled that I even asked. He thought I'd told her. If everyone thinks the same way as he does, then that means that she's the only one who is unaware of the true identity of the Black Dino Ranger. I feel like an idiot – how could I not have told her? Sure, we'd hardly spoken in the past year and a half, but before I'd gone to Mercer's island we'd been thick as thieves. Everyone, quite rightly, expected that I would want to tell Kim I was a ranger again myself. And I'd left it to others.

Idiot.

Once again, I'm wrapped up in my thoughts, and hardly notice where Kim is leading us. I shake myself out of my reverie, only to notice that Kim looks as though her head is also in the clouds, and wonder if she is paying any attention to where she's taking us.

She always looks more tired than I remember seeing her, and she's biting her lower lip as she used to do when thinking or worried. I wish there was something I could say to take away whatever loneliness she's apparently feeling, but I don't really have any place to anymore, even though I may want that job back. She's worn her hair down, and the slight breeze picks up a few strands as we walk, although not enough to mess it up. Kim's still as petite as she ever was, and still as gorgeous.

And, apparently, she still has the tendency to walk without paying any attention to where she's going, as she stops dead in the middle of the street with a confused expression on her face. "Where did I say we were going?" she asks, blushing. "Sorry, I guess I got distracted."

"I think you were taking us to a park, but you've been away with the fairies for the past three blocks," I tease, and her blush grows to a dark crimson. She looks at the buildings around her, and her confusion clears. "It's okay, we're at my building. Would you mind if we just stopped by my apartment so I can drop off my purse and change my shoes? I didn't dress for walking, and you wouldn't really want to listen to my complaining about having to walk in heels."

"It's not a problem at all," I assure her, and we walk on a little further, only to turn right into a lobby of an apartment building that has seen better days, as has the creaking elevator that seems to take an age to arrive. We wait side by side in the lobby, and Kim retreats into her trance-like state. I can't work out what she is thinking of, although at one stage a definite smile appears, so I don't think she's worrying about something. Who knows, as the elevator eventually arrives, and we step in.

The elevator is cramped, and we're almost touching as Kim presses the button for the fifth floor, even though when we got in we were at opposite sides of the box-like contraption.

Days later, I will still be unable to completely understand what happens next.

Kim straightens up from pressing the fifth floor button, and we're standing toe-to-toe somehow. "Sorry," she says, and steps to her left, just as I automatically step to my right.

"Oops," I say, and return to where I was, while she does exactly the same.

We're back where we started, in more ways than one. After all, wasn't this how _we _started, being awkward about being too close to each other, shy glances, and even the occasional lapse into a daydream from time to time? Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's fate. She's standing so close to me, I can smell the scent of her perfume, and finally read the expression in her eyes, which is definitely one of desire. It's probably a perfect companion to the one in my eyes, so I do the only thing that seems right in this situation.

I don't need to lean in towards her much to let my hands rest lightly on her shoulders. Quick as a flash, I bend down and crush our lips together, knowing that I've probably killed our friendship with one action, but not sure whether this will turn out to be for good or for worse.

Days later, and I'm still not entirely sure…


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Thanks to Twitch1, Dagmar, Pinkprincess85, Cranelove, Siriuslydeceased and CathyD for reviewing chapter 2. I don't know when Chapter 4 will be posted – I'm being kept busy by real life at the moment and am going to be without Internet access for a month pretty soon. I'll do my best to get another chapter up as soon as I can, but until then, here's the third chapter. As always, I own nothing, and please review. 

Kim 

At first, I'm shocked. Then I take a moment and realise, who am I kidding? This has been on the cards ever since we met up again, for whichever reason fate has chosen to throw at us this time. And once I've gotten over the initial shock of Tommy kissing me, I decide that it's actually quite nice.

Scratch that. It's fantastic. So, I do what any self-respecting woman would do when faced with such an unexpected yet romantic kiss in a cramped elevator, and kiss him back. Sparks are travelling up and down my spine in a not entirely uncomfortable manner, and as he draws me closer, my arms entwine around his neck so I can pull myself up higher to reach him.

For the first time in my life, I find myself wishing I lived on a higher building in my apartment block, to make the elevator ride longer. Luckily the door doesn't open on us at another floor apart from my own (I'd love to try explaining _this _to the neighbours), and I break away from him and step out of the elevator, while trying to sort my hair out at the same time. Trini was right when she said I'd be able to flick it coquettishly, but she failed to mention potential stylistic disasters should anyone else come near the hair. I have no doubt I look as though I've been electrocuted, but I'm interrupted from fishing for my keys with one hand and frantically flattening down my hair with the other by said destroyer of hairstyles taking my purse from me and burrowing through it to find the keys. All I can do is stand and stare in a possibly unflattering fashion.

Tommy finds the keys in the deepest darkest corner of my purse, and dangles them in front of me so I can indicate the right one to open my front door. Wordlessly, I point to the only silver one on the ring, and then use the same finger to incredulously touch my lips to make sure that the kiss actually happened. He turns to open my door, succeeds, and then holds it open for me so I can enter. I do so, he follows me inside, shuts the door and turns back towards me, looking very much as though he wants to carry on the kiss which was so rudely interrupted by the elevator. And believe me, there's nothing more that I'd like to do.

Somehow, we end up in what passes for my den, but in reality is a small space with a sofa, TV, computer and bookshelf. We sit on the couch, perhaps a bit too close if I was supposed to be following a dating guide and playing it cool, but in all honesty, do I really need to? He knows that my most embarrassing moment was having to sleep outside my dorm room in college when I was drunk and couldn't find my keys, only to be woken by the cleaners at 7:30 the next morning. I really don't think there's anything else I can tell him that would put him off.

He reaches for me once more, but this time I initiate the kiss, and we end up in the inelegant position of me halfway across his lap and him almost falling off the sofa. I can't exactly hear him complaining though, as this kiss is infinitely better than the first. Somehow he manages to pull himself back onto the sofa without breaking lip contact, which is highly impressive, and opens his eyes slightly to reach round me and pull off my jacket.

I don't know how long we stay like this for, but I know that however long it is will never be enough. It feels kind of stupid that we've been friends for ten years now and gone without this when it feels so right. How could we ever have thought that we could just be friends?

Somehow our shoes end up thrown to the other end of the room in the throes of passion, which would have been well and good had they not hit the wall with an incredibly loud connection noise. It would have been fine if they'd been thrown on the wall which the sofa rests on, as the guy living there is slightly younger than I am and doesn't care about noise. However, the woman living on the other side is Mrs. Jacobs, who is in her sixties but is still sharp of hearing, and tuts at people if they cause the elevator to stop on the fifth floor after eight at night. She never leaves the building as far as I can tell, and I have a sinking feeling in my chest that the noise is not going to go unnoticed.

We manage another minute or so of full-on kissing which have the accumulated effect of turning my knees to jelly, before the inevitable hammering on my door begins. And doesn't stop.

"Who the hell is that?" Tommy murmurs, pulling away from me slightly but still holding me so close to him that I can smell his aftershave. He's changed it over the years, and I don't recognise the scent, but I could get used to it pretty quickly.

"My nosy neighbour who hates noise," I say quietly, and readjust my position so I'm sitting closely to him on the sofa. "If we keep quiet she might think it was rats and leave us alone."

The luck I've had so far today has obviously run out, as after a brief pause, she starts up again, and about ten times louder than before. "Miss Hart? Are you okay in there? Would you like me to call the police?"

"The police?" Tommy mouths at me incredulously. "It was only a shoe…" Mrs Jacobs begins hammering on the door with her fist, and I can hear her shouting as well, although individual words are drowned out by the attempt to knock down my door.

"She probably would call them as well," I moan ruefully. "I should go and reassure her."

"She might go away if we just leave her," Tommy says hopefully, and picks up my hand to caress my fingers. Unfortunately, although it feels incredible, my attention is elsewhere, and I move to pull away. "Where do you think you're going?"

"The sooner I can placate her and get rid of her, the sooner we can have peace and quiet," I reason, and get up from the sofa to answer the door. I manage to catch Mrs Jacobs mid-knock, and she almost falls into the apartment. Luckily, she balances herself in time, and looks indignant.

"Miss Hart, is there any reason there are loud noises travelling from your apartment into mine?"

So much for the concerned neighbour act. "Sorry, Mrs Jacobs. I dropped a shoe, and it made a little too much noise. It won't happen again." Unfortunately, I don't think she's heard a word of my explanation, as she's too busy craning her neck and trying to get a better look over my shoulder at Tommy, who I thought had remained on the sofa, but is now making his way towards the front door.

"And who is this?" Mrs Jacobs asks critically, looking him up and down with a pointed glance. "I didn't realise you were co-habiting, Miss Hart."

"I'm an old friend from high school," Tommy says smoothly, and stands beside me so as to offer his hand for Mrs Jacobs to shake. "I'm in town for a doctorate conference, and came by to see Kim as we hadn't caught up in a long while." He flashes Mrs Jacobs a winning smile, and you can almost see her objections curl up and die as she reaches forward to take his hand.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Patty Jacobs, I live next door. And you are…" she enquires (not entirely delicately) while still holding onto Tommy's hand.

"Tommy Oliver," he says, while trying to extricate himself from Mrs Jacobs' grip. I intervene hastily, and say quickly,

"Is there anything else we can help you with, Mrs Jacobs?"

With my query she seems to shake herself back into normal action, and finally drops Tommy's hand. "As long as you keep the noise down, we won't have a problem, Miss Hart. Good day to you both." She shoots another lingering glance at Tommy, then flounces off back into her apartment. I shut the door, and then smirk at Tommy.

"I see you can still wrap the ladies around your little finger. If I'd been alone, I'd never have heard the end of it. I swear she was about to ask why one shoe could sound like four shoes hitting the wall." He shrugs, and flops back onto the couch.

"I guess I just have a natural charm." I don't go and sit back next to him, instead I remain standing and look at the back of his head.

What do I do now? More to the point, what would we have done if we hadn't been interrupted? Yes, it was good. Very good. Incredible… but is it right? We broke up for a reason, and a valid one at that. I didn't invent another guy when I initially broke up with him, and neither of us have been pining for the other since the aftermath ended. Is this what Trini warned me of – two friends falling back into a familiar pattern – or is it more? It feels like more. To tell the truth, it feels like all I've ever wanted. But am I blinded by stupidity, or am I finally seeing what's been in front of me for far too long?

Tommy 

Kim is developing an unattractive habit of spacing out at important times.

She looks gorgeous when she does it, mind. She hasn't lost the habit of biting her lower lip with her teeth, and once again her expression is distant. There's a tiny smile on her face, so I don't think her thoughts are bad ones, but I get the feeling she's trying to work through what just happened in her head. I can't blame her for it, as I'm struggling to comprehend it myself.

I'm having no trouble in believing that this is right. I know that kisses that good don't come along every day, and I don't know anyone who understands me as well as Kim does. That's not to take away from Kat or Megan however, I did my best not to compare them to Kim when seeing either of them, and for the most part I succeeded. Seeing her over the past few days has opened old feelings though, and I remember why we worked so well in the first place.

The part that's confusing me, however, is why this happened _now_. I can't figure it out, no matter how many times I go over it in my head. We have seen each other countless times since Kim initially came back to the West coast. We guided each other through tough times, and saw the good times together, but always only as friends. I never thought of her as anything more, but over the past week it's as though that period of our lives never existed, and I've always seen her in a romantic light rather than seeing her as a friend, and a friend only, for the past ten years.

Then again, if this is what fate's handing us, who am I to argue?

Kim mumbles something under her breath, and I don't think she realises she's doing it. Her cheeks are still slightly flushed as a result of our encounter on the couch, her hair is messed up at the back, but she still looks beautiful. However, she still looks confused, and I decide to interrupt her reverie. "Still up for the walk?" I suggest. Even though there's nothing I'd like more than to continue what we started, Kim looks slightly shell-shocked (I must be hiding my glee more effectively) and I know better than to push her into something she's not sure of. She looks up and meets my gaze, and then smiles. "Sure. Just let me get a pair of shoes that haven't caused offence to my neighbours and we can go."

Kim darts into what I presume to be her bedroom to retrieve a pair of shoes she's able to walk in, and I walk over to the other side of the den to put my own shoes back on. She comes back into the room surprisingly quickly for such a fashionista (I was expecting to wait for twenty minutes while she chose the right colour sneakers), and I take her hand. It can be interpreted as anything she wants – romantic or friendly handholding, even though I'm just looking for an excuse to touch her. "Are we actually going to get to the park this time?" I joke, and am rewarded by a surprisingly painful punch to the arm. "Ow! What was that for?"

"If you hadn't waylaid me by molesting me on my very own couch, we could have been at the park half an hour ago," she reminds me. The words may be threatening, but the tone and her wide grin serve to tell me that she was very happy with the turn of events, and she squeezes my hand lightly before pulling me out of the apartment. "So stop complaining and let's go!"

We stroll along the streets of Surfside once more (after the now-essential clinch in the elevator, this time on the way back to ground level), except this time both of us are paying more attention to our surroundings. "That's where I work," Kim says eventually as we pass a tall building on our left.

"Any progress on that front?" I ask, watching her closely. She shrugs.

"If it doesn't get better in the next month, I'm leaving. I'm not paid to be their runner, and even if I try to assert my authority they'll only resent me for it. If I can't get another job here I may as well try my hand in L.A. There's not exactly much keeping me here." What can I say to that? She looks up at me, and laughs at my expression. "There's no need to look so tragic, it's not as though I'm attached to the job. Not all of us are as lucky as you to have found a vocation, some of us have to work away and eventually find something we're good at. It's not heartbreaking, and it's not catastrophic. It's just the way it is."

"I would hardly call being hassled by my boss a vocation," I protest, and remind myself to keep up the lie about Randall keeping me late at school. Still, it's a perfectly plausible explanation. "But you're right, I do love teaching. I was surprised at first, but it's the right job for me."

"And advertising is the right job for me," Kim replies as we cross the road and make our way towards the park gates in the distance. "I just haven't found the right place yet. Trial and error, and all that."

The park is in the middle of the city, and is nowhere near the size of Angel Grove Park, but is still a pretty space with flower beds, expanses of grass, and winding paths which traverse the width and length of the area. I choose to stake out an area along the perimeter which has a nice view of the rest of the park, and pull Kim down after me. She squeals, but doesn't resist.

"And what happened to this walk you were so desperate to take?" she mocks. I look at her with my best beguiling stare, and say,

"I changed my mind. Of course, if you have a problem with that…"

She shuts me up by kissing me, which considering the amount of crap I've babbled in front of her today, is probably the wisest thing to do. I thoroughly enjoy our time as one of the couples in parks that everyone else loves to hate, so sickening have we become. All we need is to begin strolling hand-in-hand around the park, eating each other's ice creams and with our hands in each other's back pockets, and we would be truly hated. Then again, I have no inclination to move from the patch of grass we have claimed as our own, and the time goes by far too quickly. Occasionally we kiss, but mostly we just sit. Neither of us has been in the mood for talking much today, and although there are most definitely things that need to be said, now doesn't seem to be the time. It needs to be determined where we stand, relationship-wise, and before too much time goes past I really need to tell her about my role as mentor to the Dino Rangers. But the day is too perfect – the sun is out, and although there's a slight breeze, the temperature is warm, and I have Kim back in my arms, where I'm convinced she belongs. Surely my news can wait for another day.

We stay in the park for a couple of hours I guess, until eventually the sun begins to set and the temperature starts to drop. I look at my watch, and am shocked to find that we've been there for about four hours as opposed to the two I had reckoned upon, and it's almost ten in the evening. "Oh god…"I moan, and lean back further into the tree I am currently propped against, with Kim resting against my chest. "I'm going to have to go back to Reefside."

"Why, what time is…" Kim lazily raises her arm to look at her wrist, and her eyes widen. "Is it really ten? I thought we'd only been here for a couple of hours."

"So did I, but time flies when you're having fun," I say wryly, and make moves to get up.

"You could always stay here…" Kim suggests, with a hint of seduction in her eyes. It kills me to have to turn this down, especially when we were interrupted before anything serious could happen earlier, but it's an impossibility.

"I have to get up at 6 as it is to get to school on time. If I stayed at your place I'd have to leave at half 4, and although there's nothing I'd like more than to stay with you and maybe continue what we started earlier, I draw the line at such an early wake-up call."

"Damn, I really don't agree with the new, sensible, you," Kim says as I pull her up from the ground and we begin the walk back to her place. "Back in the day, we'd have thought nothing of it."

"If you want to get up before dawn to see me out of the premises, then feel free," I retort, and she scrunches her features up into a scowl. "Maybe next time we'll have to meet on the weekend." A part of me is reminding me that no self-respecting male should ask his date out on the next date while the first is still ongoing, but then again, this is no normal 'date'. Once you've tried to kill someone before their sixteenth birthday, the normal bounds of social etiquette don't really apply. "What are you doing on Friday night?"

"Nothing I can't cancel," Kim says nonchalantly, swinging our joined hands back and forth. I have a feeling we're on a level playing field here – nice as it would be to pretend we'd only just met, and go through the more pleasurable parts of getting to know someone for the first time, there's not much possibility of it happening between the two of us. We know each other far too well; there's no point in beating round the bush. There's no need to rush headlong into things, but equally no need to tiptoe around each other. "What did you have in mind?"

I can't really say 'a continuation of what was going extremely well on your couch earlier'. "Dinner, then take it from there?" I suggest. Do I propose Reefside as a venue this time? It would make sense, seeing as we've only met in Surfside, however inadvertently. And dinner at my place would be the perfect opportunity to tell her about the whole ranger escapade, and then show her the basement. "I'll cook," I add. She makes a face, although she tries to hide it, and I protest. "Hey, you haven't eaten anything I've cooked for ten years. You have no right to judge me on the steak incident."

"You gave your own mother food poisoning!" she reminds me, and I wince. It wasn't exactly my finest moment.

"I've improved. And if you don't like it, we can order takeout. Sound good?"

"I'll believe these new culinary skills when I see them," she threatens, but the smile that hasn't left her face all evening is still there, so I'm not too worried. I'm glad our playful banter that we enjoyed as friends has remained intact, it's always been fun trying to get a rise out of Kim, and she'd say the same about me. "What time shall I aim to get to Reefside at? And you'd better give me directions if you expect me to turn up on time!"

I look up, and find that we're outside Kim's apartment building, and that this is where we will have to part ways. "I'll call you tomorrow and give you directions," I promise, and lean down to kiss her goodbye. It's one of those kisses that you really don't want to have to end, so I don't end it for quite some time. I'm enjoying familiarising myself with Kim once more – she smells different than when we were teenagers, and her hair is longer, but the important things are still the same – she's the perfect height to fit into my shoulder, she's still as sympathetic as ever (having to put up with a diatribe on Randall when we were relaxing in the park would have destroyed lesser people), and more importantly, we still fit together as friends.

Eventually I have to end it or we'll get arrested for public indecency, but I don't break the hold I have over her. "I'll see you Friday night, 7:30. And I promise not to give you food poisoning."

"You'd better not," Kim flushes, and pushes her hair out of her eyes for the thousandth time this evening. "Call me to give me directions."

"I will," I assure her, and she walks into her building, allowing herself a backwards glance at me, and a slight grin before she enters the elevator.

I sigh as I watch her leave, and start the walk back to my car. It wasn't the way I'd seen the night going, but it was definitely something I'd hoped for. I'm wary about the fact that I've left telling her about my newly renewed Ranger job for so long – Kim always expects honesty from her friends, and she isn't going to be too impressed when she finds out that she's been in the dark for so long, however inadvertently. I resolve that come hell or high water, I will tell her on Friday night, and it eases my guilt somewhat.

After all, we shouldn't have secrets.

Kim 

It takes all my self-control to refrain from squealing like a pre-teen until I get into my apartment. Even then, I have to be careful not to squeak too loud or Mrs Jacobs will be on my case for the second time that day, and this time I don't have Tommy here to appease her.

I eventually break out of my deliriously happy state to realise that I am hungry. I never even thought of eating while we were at the park, and I only had a sandwich for lunch. As I make my way into the kitchen to get myself something to eat, I notice that the light on my answer machine is blinking at me insistently. I press the play button, and listen to the messages as I open and shut cupboard doors, trying to find something that isn't past its sell-by date.

"Kim, it's your mother. It's morning here, so give me a call back when you get this message. Christophe and I are thinking of coming to see you for a couple of weeks this summer, what do you think about that? We'll probably go to see your brother as well, but do you have room for visitors? Call me back, sweetie. Love you."

My apartment barely has room for me, let alone visitors. Still, I guess I could sleep on the sofa. I shrug my shoulders at the thought and move my search for food onto the fridge. The next message is from Aisha, who sounds despondent.

"Hey Kim, it's me. I just wanted to check in, and to ask if you're sure it's okay that I come up next weekend. Things aren't really going any better here, and I really need to escape for a while. I'm going to bed now, so call me back tomorrow and let me know. Speak to you soon."

My heart goes out to Aisha, and I make a mental note to call her as soon as I get into work tomorrow and let her know there'll always be a place for her here. It seems as though my advice hasn't worked, but I remain adamant that they'll work through it, or else my faith in romance will be utterly shot, despite the events of this evening. My third and final message is from an indignant Trini, and I can't help laughing out loud as I hear her.

"Kim? Kim, where are you? You're not answering your cell either, so I have no doubt that you are engaged in some kind of sordid affair with our very own fearless leader. No matter what time you get this message, I want you to call me back immediately. There will be no excuses about not wanting to wake your niece up, I need to know immediately." There is then a slight pause and murmurs in the background, and then Trini says in a more normal voice, "and Jason says hi. _Call me_."

My watch says it's only half past ten, so once the tape has rewound, I reach for the cordless phone and take it into the den, along with an apple which is slightly past its best. I dial Trini's number, and wait for her to pick up, which she does after three rings. "Hello?"

I get straight to the point. "I object to the term 'sordid affair'. It makes me sound like I'm in some cheap soap opera."

"Kim? Where the hell have you been? I was starting to get worried for real when you didn't answer your cell." I take my phone out of my pocket and sure enough, the display tells me I have eight missed calls.

"Sorry, I must not have heard the cell ring. I was in the park," I hint, knowing I have just lit the gossip touchpaper.

"Oh. So you expect me to believe you were in the park, alone, until half past ten at night. I don't think so, Kim. How did it go?"

"It was great," I admit, and take a bite out of my apple, which prevents me from talking for a moment. Trini takes offence at this, and starts ranting again.

"Great. Just, 'great'? What does that tell me? Nothing."

"It should tell you something, you're the psychiatrist," I hint helpfully, and grin at the annoyance I must be causing Trini. I'm right.

"Kim, I've been at work all day, dealing with a teething Sally all evening, and I've been on tenterhooks ever since you called me earlier. Now answer me this, did you at least kiss the man?" I forgot how demanding Trini can be when she wants gossip. At least Aisha and I are playful when extracting gossip from each other, but Trini is ruthless. I'm tired from being in the fresh air for four hours, but can't resist carrying on the game for a little longer.

"Yes, of course I did. A polite kiss on the cheek when we parted…" I hint, leaving just enough ambiguity in my voice for Trini to catch on that this is not the full story.

"And?"

"Oh, there was a bit of kissing on the couch, but my neighbour came by when we threw our shoes at the wall, and it got interrupted. And I'm pretty sure we broke a couple of public indecency laws when we were in the park earlier, but you don't really want to hear about that, do you?" I tease.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Trini asks lightly, but I can sense there's something else she wants to ask me and is refraining to do so, for whatever reason.

"We haven't exactly talked it over yet, but I'm pretty sure we're headed in the right direction. Why are you doubting this?" I ask, curious as to why she's not sharing my happiness. Maybe I should have called Aisha, this would have pulled her out of the doldrums even if I would have had to wake her up to do it.

"I don't want you to get hurt, Kim. I don't want either of you to get hurt, come to that. Are you seeing each other again?"

I finish the apple and throw the core into the bin. "He's cooking me dinner on Friday night, but has promised provision of take-out if things go badly wrong." Trini laughs, and I hope that this is a sign of support. "Are you going to be on my side in this, Trini?"

"Of course I am! I'm sorry Kim, but you have to admit that this has come as something out of the blue. I guess I just needed to reassure myself that you know what you're getting yourself into."

"I do," I reassure her, and yawn. "How has your day been? Apart from dealing with a teething baby, which is fine on its own with no re-enactments through the medium of sound, in case you were wondering."

"It's been a pretty boring day, not as eventful as yours from the sounds of it. I rearranged some clients this evening so we can have a girl's night when Aisha comes into town. Have either of you rung Kat and Tanya?"

"Not that I know of. I need to call Sha tomorrow, so I'll ask her then and if she hasn't done it I'll call them from work. It'll be good to have the five of us together again if we can all make it."

"Hopefully with gossip to impart," Trini hints, and I relax slightly. Judgemental Trini seems to have been replaced by Happy Trini, which is always a good sign. "I'll call you over the weekend. From the sounds of it, you'll be in Reefside on Saturday morning, I presume?"

"TRINI!" I yell down the phone, and blush furiously. I can't deny that that was where we were headed before Mrs Jacobs interrupted us, but my best friend is not supposed to think those kinds of things about me. "I resent… I wouldn't… Oh, I give up. I'll call you when I'm back. Which will be on Friday night!" I reinforce, and scowl.

"Ever heard of protesting too much?" Trini remarks mildly, before following it up with "Don't answer that. Just call me whenever. Night."

"Night," I mumble, and replace the receiver, on its base on the coffee table, unwilling now to call my mother and discuss logistics of her impending stay. All I want to do is sleep, and hopefully have sweet dreams. I switch the light off in the den and make my way to my bedroom, thinking about what Trini said, but even her warnings can't prevent the tiniest of grins from taking permanent residence on my mouth.

Tommy 

The next day, I do everything with a spring in my step. Everything seems rosy – indifferent students can be invigorated with encouragement, aliens can be appeased by gentle words, and nosy teammates can be quietened by ignoring the matter.

I can't vouch for the first two, but the latter most definitely isn't true. I happen to walk into my basement this fine Thursday afternoon whistling tunelessly and presumably with a faraway expression on my face. I don't know how my students have got here before me, but from the incredulous expressions on their faces, Kira, Ethan, Conner and Trent were expecting to find me annoyed from having spent a sizeable period of the day teaching, as opposed to me being happy and suggesting we take a day off from training seeing as there had been an attack the previous day, and Hayley hadn't made it to my place yet.

"Are you feeling okay, Dr. O?" Conner asks bemusedly, scratching his head and looking at his friends for support. "You've never cancelled a training session before, and you've never come home from a day's teaching looking this happy. Did Randall keel over and die, or something?"

"Don't be rude about your principal," I say automatically, while sitting on my chair and absent-mindedly thinking of what to cook for Kim tomorrow night. And wondering how on earth I am going to successfully explain away not telling her of my second job for a week.

"Don't be rude about Randall? You practically encourage it!" Conner protests, but is quietened by punches in the ribs from Kira and Ethan on either side of him.

"I think what Conner is trying unsuccessfully to say, is that you seem too happy for someone who's just spent an entire day teaching, Dr. O," Trent paraphrases with an amused grin on his face. "Is there any particular reason?"

I pick up a pencil from the desk and twiddle it between my fingers. "It's a lovely day, and you should all be out enjoying your teenage years, not cooped up in here when you've been working so hard all day. Now, take advantage of this good mood while it lasts, and go do something fun before I change my mind and get you all back here."

"Are you sure?" Kira asks, but isn't given the chance to say anything else, as Conner excitedly proposes, "Ice-cream! Let's all go get ice-cream!"

"If you want us, you know what to do," Ethan assures me before being dragged out by his hyperactive friend, and the four of them exit the basement amidst yells, screams and laughter. I shake my head, but the smile refuses to leave my face, and I decide to leave Hayley a message telling her she doesn't need to bother stopping by today. Once done, I don't replace the phone, instead deciding to ring Jason and find out what he thinks of the latest developments.

This isn't gossiping. Gossiping isn't my style – this is keeping my best friend up to date with recent events. I wouldn't tell anyone at Reefside anything about this – Hayley never really took to Kim the first and only time they met; although they were civil to each other I got the feeling they wouldn't be making much of an effort in the future. I don't know any of my colleagues well enough to tell them about a woman they've never met, and I would boil myself in red-hot soup before breathing a word about anything to do with my love life to Ethan, Trent, Conner or Kira. The only viable candidate for passing on news is Jason, and so I dial his cell number and hope that he's winding down at work for the day and is able to talk. It seems I've struck lucky, as he picks up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey bro, are you free to talk?" I ask, noticing that his voice is slightly quieter than normal.

"Yeah, sure. I just got back from taking Sally to the doctor's and she's just going to sleep. Wait a minute while I go into the kitchen and then I can talk without waking her up." I can hear a door opening then closing softly. "Okay, I'm with you. What's up?"

"Is anything wrong with my favourite god-daughter?" I ask concernedly. I may not be great with tiny kids, but I was honoured when Jase and Trini asked me to be godfather to their daughter. Sally's cute as babies go, but I prefer not to be around when it's time to change diapers.

"No, nothing at all, just a routine weight check at the paediatrician's. Trini had to see a patient so I volunteered. Anyway, to what do I owe the honour of a second call in a week?"

I cough slightly, and wonder how to phrase it. "Kim and I might be back together, but I'm not entirely sure."

"You what?" Jason splutters, and I can't help but wish I could see his expression – probably two parts shock to one part amusement. "Of course, you were meeting her yesterday, weren't you? I take it this reunion happened then?"

"Yeah, but I still haven't told her about the whole Rangering thing yet," I admit sheepishly.

"You remember the temper that Kim had on her when we were teenagers? It hasn't dimmed with age," Jason informs me, and I wince. "If you don't tell her pronto, she will kick your ass all the way back to Angel Grove."

"I meant to tell her, but we kind of got distracted," I tell him. "Then things were left up in the air, and I really don't know where we stand."

"Even if nothing comes of whatever it is that you guys got up to – and believe me, I really don't want to know what it was – you need to tell her, Tom," Jase says seriously, and I know that he's right. I don't even know what's stopping me anymore, apart from feeling guilty that I've left it this long, and the guilt will only get worse as the time lengthens. "No matter what, she's one of your best friends, and it's only through accidents that she wasn't told as soon as you told me."

"She's coming round for dinner tomorrow, so I will tell her then," I say vehemently, as much to reassure me than to placate my best friend. "I'm just going to have to perfect my cooking skills so she would feel bad about yelling at someone who can cook such perfect steak."

"Didn't you give your own mother food poisoning by cooking your parents steak?" Jason jokes, and I feel glad the conversation's moved on to something more light-hearted, even if it still remains in the general area of highlighting my shortcomings.

"That was ten years ago, and I've cooked steak since then," I retort. "I don't even know what I'm cooking yet, I need to go to the grocery store after work tomorrow, and pray that nothing happens to distract me between school ending and her coming over."

"Have you had any trouble recently?" Jason asks. I'm so lucky to have friends that I can call upon for advice in all aspects of my life, and mentally kick myself for not including Kim in this circle straight away, however inadvertently.

"A little yesterday, but nothing major. Didn't make me late to meet Kim, so I wasn't that fussed. I think Mesogog's still recovering from the last major attack a couple weeks back, as far as I can work out it should be another couple of weeks before we're badly hit again."

"If you need any help, you know where I am, and it goes for Trini too. As long as you don't mind a nine-month old infant screaming the house down," Jason jokes, and I smile at the casual way we can still offer each other all the help we can give, even when other people would have balked due to the pressure of other commitments.

"It's always appreciated," I tell him sincerely.

"You know I'll make you pay it back in babysitting duties when Sally's old enough for Trini not to be paranoid about leaving her with you," Jason jibes, and I can't hit back because I know I'd be appalling at caring for my god-daughter. "Anyway, I'd better sort out dinner for the two of us seeing as I left work early. I think it's safe to say I won't be cooking steak."

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," I reply. "I'll speak to you soon, bro."

"I'll give you a call over the weekend. I think Trini mentioned a girl's night was being planned at Kim's next weekend, so I'll be left to look after my gorgeous daughter for a couple of nights. If you could get away, we could have a responsible guy's night."

"I'll do my best. Talk to you later." I hang up the phone, and decide to leave marking papers until after I've gone to the grocery store. If I do the shopping for tomorrow's dinner now, it gives me more time to correct any mistakes that I may make tomorrow. I have improved as a cook, but by no stretch of the imagination could my cooking be described as cordon bleu. I grab my car keys and stride out of the house, running imaginary menus through my head and discarding those which will be impossible.

I will tell her. Tomorrow, I will tell her.

Kim 

It's Friday morning, and I have nothing to wear.

The initial elation of Wednesday night has subsided into a dull panic that nothing was actually said about our status. Trini's caution has got me thinking, and I've been trying to convince myself that I'll take everything as it comes, and if he decides we should just remain friends, I can live with it.

That approach worked fine on Thursday, when I still had a day to get through before driving down to Reefside. However, in a little under ten hours, I'll be having dinner with a sort-of boyfriend, and once again I find myself in the midst of a wardrobe crisis. Do I dress up and risk total humiliation if I get the whole "love you like a sibling" thing that I inflicted on him in high school, or do I dress down and be embarrassed if it's a fancy dinner?

I do the only thing a self-respecting woman would do, and pack two outfits – a more formal dress and heels, and a top, skirt and sandals. Tommy's due to ring me during the day to give me directions to his place anyway, so I figure I'll dig for hints as to the style of the meal and change my work outfit in the restroom once I'm done at work.

I finally get to work in my normal outfit, but with the happy expression that has become a regular feature over the past day or so. Even though I'm panicking, I feel happier than I have in a long time. It feels as though events are leading up to yet another fresh start, but perhaps this time things would work out better than my life in Surfside has turned out so far. Although, things do seem to be looking up…

Today, I am polite to my co-workers. More than that, I am nice, and they are nice back in return. Maybe this was all we needed, for me as their boss to be in a better frame of mind, for me to be accepted into their fold. I wouldn't go so far as to say the five of us are becoming best friends, but I have a gossip with them before lunch, and things seem to be getting done more quickly than usual. Time flies when you're trying to avoid thinking about something and for the most part, succeeding, and it's not until I look at my watch and realise it's 4:45 that Tommy hasn't called to give me directions to his place.

I'm not overly worried about this – I know his memory, and that he's probably forgotten – but a tiny voice in the back of my head is warning me that he may have forgotten the date altogether. Maybe I should call him and ask? Is that too forward of me?

_Don't be stupid, _I tell myself. _I need to remember that first of all, we're friends. And as a friend, I've been invited to dinner, but don't know the way. Why should I hesitate to call for directions?_

I'm arguing with myself while going through some files to check they're all in order at the end of the week, when finally my cell phone rings. I grab it to answer it without looking at the display number; I know who it will be, but don't want to take the obvious route by making fun of his memory skills from the outset.

"Hello?"

From the outset, my heart sinks as I realise something's wrong. "Kim, I'm so sorry, but something's come up and I can't make our dinner tonight. I bought the food and everything, but I'm going to have to cancel. Can we reschedule?"

Interesting. Tommy wouldn't have suggested rescheduling if he didn't want to see me, I know that much. But what's come up that has necessitated him leaving town so suddenly? "What's wrong?"

He breathes out and makes the phone line crackle. "Can I explain it to you when I see you? I know you deserve an explanation, but I really need to see you to explain it properly, and I can't do it over the phone."

It's alleviated my fears of being dumped before we've properly begun slightly, but there's still something off. "When do you want to reschedule for?"

"I don't like the thought of all the food I bought going to waste, so does tomorrow suit you?" His slightly hurried tone has shifted into a more seductive voice, and I instantly stop the inward cursing I was projecting his way at cancelling tonight.

"I think I can fit you into my heavy social schedule," I say sarcastically, but then laugh to show there's few hard feelings towards him. "Are you going to be able to make it this time?"

"If there's any problems I'll call you as soon as I can. I'll call you anyway tomorrow, to give you directions. I'm really sorry Kim, but I'm going to have to go. Keep your cell on, and I'll let you know as soon as I can. I can't wait to see you."

My tone softens to mirror his as the conversation draws to a close. "I know I was really looking forward to seeing you, too. I guess now I'll have time to perfect my wardrobe choices."

I can picture him smirking at the other end of the phone, as he replies, "I wouldn't expect anything less, Kim! I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye." I click the 'off' button and slip my phone back into my purse. Although

everything seems to be fine, and I have no reason not to believe Tommy when he says there's a valid excuse for him cancelling tonight, something is telling me there's more to it than an emergency teacher's union meeting or suchlike. Do I believe this voice, or not?

I turn back to my desk and carry on categorising a week's worth of files, which is the perfect task for allowing my mind to wander. I'm slowly convincing myself that there's more to this cancellation than meets the eye, although Tommy's words gave me nothing to worry about.

I guess I'll just have to wait this one out, and find out for myself what Tommy's hiding from me when I see him tomorrow.

If he doesn't come up with another excuse not to see me, that is…


	4. Chapter 4

Author's notes: A huge thank you to everyone who's been reviewing this fic, every one of them is greatly appreciated. I hope this chapter will keep you all satisfied for the next month or so. I'll be writing away while I'm without internet access, so as soon as I'm back online the next chapter will be up. Please read and review!

_Kim_

Panicking is useless. Even though I spend all of Friday night curled up on my couch, relentlessly thinking 'I should have been at Tommy's place about now…. He'd have been serving the dinner in five minutes'. There's no use in wondering what's gone on, when he told me he'd let me in on the gossip as soon as he saw me. His voice sounded more perturbed than overly worried, so if I took things on face value, there would be nothing to tell me that anything was wrong.

So I ignore the tiny voice whispering in the back of my head that is trying to convince me that something more is wrong. There's no reason for me to believe it, so I don't. I watch TV all of Friday night, and then take a stroll around town on Saturday morning, all the while clutching my cell phone, hoping he'll call.

The weather is once again gorgeous, and I take advantage of the sunshine to buy some brightly coloured flowers for my apartment, and some new shoes in which to better enjoy the heat. I spend the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon window-shopping, and don't even realise the time until I happen to walk past City Hall where the large clock tells me it's a little after three.

I refuse to dwell on this. I have every faith that he will call in the next couple hours, apologize for last night once more, and then give me directions to Reefside so I can go to his place for dinner tonight. With that in mind, the best thing for me to do would be to go home and start preparing myself for a dinner with a sort-of boyfriend, who blew you off the night before but then immediately rescheduled your date for the very next evening.

Somehow, I have a feeling most fashion magazines won't cater for this kind of disaster. I make my way back to the building and inside the lobby to enter the elevator (I can't get into the elevator anymore without blushing a violent shade of red), but groan when I see Mrs Jacobs already standing inside.

"Good afternoon, Miss Hart," she says disapprovingly, and presses the button for the fifth floor. Unlike the other night, I'm now thankful for the fact I have a short journey to undertake. "Is your friend not with you today?"

What business is it of hers? I don't comment on anyone going in and out of her apartment. "No, he was only in town for the day; he lives a couple hours up the coast so he went back that night."

"He was a very charming young man," Mrs Jacobs says dreamily, and I stare at her with horror. Is she fantasising about my boyfriend? "And very polite, too. Still," and she snaps out of her daydream to give me a pointed stare. "Noise should be kept to a minimum, you hear? This is a quiet building, and I'd like it kept that way. So, if he should ever come back, be sure to keep the racket down."

"I'll do my best, Mrs Jacobs," I say noncommittally, and thank the lucky stars that the elevator doors open just as she begins to formulate a response. I duck out before her, and grab my keys quickly from my purse to let myself into my apartment. I think she says something after me, but I shut the door before she can drum more principles down my throat. Besides, it won't matter about the noise if he never calls me back, will it?

I sigh, and curl back up onto the couch where I spent all of last night vegetating. My sudden enthusiasm for picking an outfit for tonight has waned as quickly as it appeared, and now all I want to do is sleep. Sure enough, I quickly fall into a light doze, where my broken sleep is punctuated by dreams of Mrs Jacobs brandishing the shoes that knocked against her wall on Wednesday night and running after me and Tommy, shouting "Keep the noise down! This is a retirement facility," and an equally disturbing dream where I can see Tommy across a river but neither of us can jump across to join the other.

I'm not stupid. I know exactly what these dreams mean. This is why I force myself out of sleep, even though it necessitates a pounding headache, and look at my clock, to find it's just gone 5. No chance of dinner…

And even though I've been doing my best to convince myself that everything's fine, suddenly I'm drawn back into the spiral of negative thoughts, and I wish I'd stayed asleep.

_Tommy_

It's days like this that I really wish I'd never become a Ranger.

The thought's normally gone as quickly as it arrives. I've gained too many things to be truly resentful for something I can't change anyway. Still, if I hadn't been drawn in a second time, I wouldn't have this huge black eye which I can't explain away to Kim without her giving me a matching one on the other side to punish me for not explaining sooner.

I'm sitting in my basement with Hayley, who's trying to recalibrate some of the co-ordinates picked up after yesterday's untimely fight. I had just started dialling Kim's number to give her directions when the alarm started screeching downstairs. I hadn't expected two fights in two days, and I definitely hadn't expected Mesogog and Elsa to put up so much resistance to us after we'd done such a good job of draining much of their power only a couple weeks beforehand.

"Are you alright, Tommy?" Hayley asks, pressing the final keys with a flourish, and turning to look at me. I must cut a pretty despondent figure, slumped over a chair pressing the aforementioned bruise as if trying to make it disappear. "I know we weren't expecting them to have so much power so soon, but we'll just have to adjust our overall strategy, that's all."

Would it completely embarrass me to admit that wasn't what I was thinking of? Probably. "Yeah, I know. We'll have to consider mounting a concerted attack in the next week or so to try and drain more power from them again, and then hope they attack pretty soon after that, and hopefully we can finish them." I stand up from my hopeless pose, and catch a glimpse of my watch. I'd thought Hayley and I had only been working for a couple hours since we started at 11, but no. My watch says ten past five, and I am officially a dead man. We still have some repair work to do on the Zords, and I don't think we can afford to leave it till tomorrow. Knowing our luck, Mesogog would attack again, and we'd have no Zords. "I'm just going up to make a call. We'd better get started on the repair work once I get back."

Hayley nods, and stretches her arms above her head. "That sounds like a plan to me. I'll get the tools ready and make a start."

"Thanks." I make my way upstairs, and frantically start thinking of excuses to keep Kim on my side until I can see her in person. I will explain to her why I couldn't make it either last night or tonight. She deserves nothing less… And she also deserves to be told in person, not over the phone. But I can't bring her here to tell her, she and Hayley don't get along, and the Zord work's going to keep me busy until late. It sounds like time to bring out one of the excuses that used to keep my parents happy when I was off saving the world. Only problem is, she invented half of them.

The thought of not calling her at all crosses my mind, but I know Kim well enough to realise that if I do that, she'd never speak to me again. Can I evade the subject for long enough to make it unnecessary for me to lie at all? It's unlikely, but I decide to give it a shot.

I dial her number quickly, and pray she won't kill me straight off for having left it this late to call her. She picks up after three rings, and I think she already knows it's me on the other end of the phone, as she growls "Hello?"

"Hi, it's me," I say warily, suddenly unsure as to what to say to her. I can hear a yawn in the background, and then she comes back on the line.

"I guess dinner's out of the question then?"

Much as I would love to cook dinner for her tonight, and explain why I've been acting so strangely for the past couple days, it's out of the question. Unless…

"Not necessarily. I've got to finish a couple of things here, but we could grab something to eat somewhere else if you want. I won't have time to cook anything, but I really need to see you." My courage could well fade if I don't see her now I've made up my mind to confess, as it were. And the fact I've missed her like crazy since Wednesday night also plays its part, of course.

"I hate to say it, but I'm exhausted," Kim admits, and I suddenly realise what could be going on here – too much evasion _will_ give Kim the impression that I'm not interested, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. "I don't think I could face the drive to Reefside, and if you're not going to be finished with whatever it is you're doing till late, I'll probably be falling asleep at the wheel. Ever get the feeling fate's conspiring against us?"

"Every day," I admit, and sink down into my sofa. I can't spare enough time for dinner, but I need to reassure Kim out of the paranoia I think she's feeling. Hayley knows more about the technology than I do, so she'll be able to make a start on the repair work while I'm on the phone. "It happens, we're at strange times in our lives, and we both have other problems going on. I know it's weird that our friendship's suddenly changed again after all this time, but I'm willing to do anything I can to make it work."

Thankfully, Kim's dubious mood seems to have lifted. "It is weird, but everything happens for a reason, right? Although if you keep cancelling dates then I will have to find my own way to Reefside and kick your ass."

"I've got no doubt that you'll do it," I tell her, and she laughs.

"So, when is whatever's keeping you away from the kitchen going to be done?"

Thank god she's not probing deeper, because now it's come to the crunch, I really don't think I could lie to her, and I know that if I tell her over the phone I'll mess it up. I need to see her, and make sure she understands I honestly didn't realise she hadn't been told. And then grovel for a thousand years when she yells at me for not telling her straight off. "Once the weekend's over, I'll be free, but I've had second thoughts about cooking for you. I don't want to subject you to food poisoning before we've had a first official date."

"Not counting the three years in high school, of course," Kim reminds me, and I shrug. I have a cunning plan that should go a long way towards appeasing her when I finally get the chance to break the news to her.

"First date where we're not teenagers, that is. Anyway. Do you know San Felipe at all? It's halfway between Reefside and Surfside."

"I've heard of it, but I've never been there. Why?" she asks curiously.

"There's an amazing Chinese restaurant there, and I thought we could maybe go to eat there. It'll cut down on the driving time for both of us, and I don't have to do the dishes afterwards."

"Yeah, and I won't have to take a week off work to deal with the after-effects of food poisoning," Kim jokes. At least, I hope it's a joke. My cooking really isn't all that bad; most of the hype around its quality has come from Jason and my parents in equal measures. Living by myself for the past few years has meant I need to cook most nights of the week, and a combination of my mother's advice and trial and error have ensured I can make adequate meals, at least. If you listen to Jason, you'd believe I ate take-out six nights a week and went to my parents to be fed on a Sunday.

"That sounds like a good idea, but I don't know if I'll be able to navigate myself around somewhere I've never been before, even with directions," Kim admits, and I grin triumphantly. For someone who was perfectly capable of navigating an airborne Zord for three years, when out of uniform she has an appalling sense of direction, and for the past few years it's become a running joke between us that she couldn't find her way out of a paper bag.

"Finally, you're admitting you have no sense of direction," I say playfully, and am rewarded with a high-pitched squeal, and a retort of,

"At least I don't forget where I'm meant to be going!"

"Okay, okay, truce," I laugh. I hadn't thought of how she'd find her way there though, and the streets in San Felipe are notoriously narrow and confusing. I think for a moment, and then come up with a suggestion. "How about I meet you somewhere outside the city, you leave your car somewhere safe, and then I drive the both of us in? There's a roadside café about ten minutes outside San Felipe as you'd be driving in from Surfside, and there's accommodation there too, so your car should be safe enough there." What I leave unspoken is the hope that she won't want to drive back to Surfside at the end of the night, but I'm aware of our somewhat precarious status. Even though both of us have admitted openly that this is what we want, I'm also worried that my news will send her running. In theory, I know that she wouldn't run away from the news that I am a ranger once again, per se. She'll probably just kick my ass to Alaska for not telling me first, and it'll be the trust issue which will make or break us as a couple.

"Safety isn't an issue, my car's so old that no criminal with any self-esteem would want to steal it," Kim reassures me. "So when were you planning on this date?"

"Monday? I might as well start grovelling as soon as possible for messing you around this weekend, and I really need to tell you what's been going on."

"When you tantalise me with gossip _and _a free dinner, you know I'll be there."

I'm slightly affronted, although only slightly. "What about the pleasure of my company? We haven't seen each other since Wednesday, and even then we each spent half the evening staring into space or stirring our coffee twenty thousand times."

"Yeah, but the other half of the evening was spent in a much better manner," Kim reminds me. "It should go without saying that I want to see you. And not just for the free dinner."

"I can't wait to see you either," I say sincerely, and it's true. I miss her like crazy, even though I'm aware it's ridiculous, we've been best friends for the past ten years and now are taking the first tentative steps towards being a couple once more. The timing couldn't have been worse for either of us – me with trying to save the world from aliens, Kim with starting a new job where she seems to think everyone hates her – but what we're both feeling can't be wrong. Can it? "Is there any chance you could get off work early? Otherwise we'll both be stuck in rush-hour traffic. We could go grab a coffee before going to dinner if we meet earlier as well."

"All we seem to do these days is drink coffee. Oh, and break public indecency laws," Kim laughs, and I grin back. "I'll say I have a doctor's appointment, and I'll leave work at about half 3. How long will it take me to get to wherever it is I have to go?"

"It should be about forty-five minutes during the day. I think it's called Betty's Roadside Café. Take the freeway to Reefside, then take the exit for Roseland, and it's just as you get to the junction coming off the road. We'll have to avoid any public displays of affection there though; we may get hounded off the premises from Betty. I've heard stories about her aversion to the male of the species."

"Freeway to Reefside, exit at Roseland," Kim mumbles, and I can hear the faint scratching of pencil against paper in the background. "Okay. I guess I'll see you Monday, then."

"I'll call you tomorrow if I can," I say, uncomfortably aware that I'm leaving her hanging slightly with my aversion to the emergency that has arisen, but if I tell her I'm needed to repair Zords when for all she knows, our last involvement with them was twelve years ago, she'll faint. I know we've grown up, but I'm sure Kim still has a predilection to fainting when she receives shocking news.

"If you don't, I'll call you," she threatens. "I'm dying to know what this mysterious gossip is. I have half a mind to ring you every hour on the hour and squeal at you until you break and let me in on the facts."

"And I really need to tell you, but not over the phone. Trust me, you'll understand when I tell you," I say earnestly. "And, of course, there's the small matter of me wanting to pick up where we left off with the kissing on Wednesday night, but I guess that comes second to the gossip."

"You'll just have to wait till Monday afternoon I guess, won't you? Now go and finish whatever it is, so you can definitely make it then, and I won't begin to think it's something I've said which is putting you off seeing me again."

"Believe me, it's nothing you've said," I reassure her, all the while uneasily aware that it's more likely to be something I will say which will put her off rekindling anything. "I'll see you Monday, about half past four."

"Bye," Kim says. I hang up the phone, and turn to find Hayley standing behind where I'm sitting with a strange expression on her face. "How long were you standing there?"

"Long enough to know that someone's keeping secrets," she admits, and walks closer to me. "So, who's the lucky lady?"

"It's none of your business," I say briskly, and begin walking back down to the basement to get on with what it is that's keeping me away from Kim.

"If it's going to distract you from your duties as a Ranger, then it is my business," Hayley points out. "Are you going to be contactable on Monday, or are you going to switch your cell off and leave the rest of us to deal with the fallout?"

I'm not completely dense, and I know that at one time, Hayley had feelings for me. I've only ever seen her as a friend, and I thought we were clear that that's all we were; but if I'm not mistaken there's a subtle hint of jealousy in her tone. I decide that the 'ostrich's head in the sand' technique has worked well so far, and ignore the hostility. "Of course I won't switch my phone off. I won't be all that far away, and if you need me, you know what to do. Just try and keep it quiet, I don't want to be grilled by the others about my love life."

"Does that mean I can grill you?" Hayley asks, and luckily she's smiling and the harshness has disappeared. "Who is she? You've been doing a good job of keeping it quiet, whoever she is."

"It hasn't been going on for long," I admit as I arrive in the basement, and grab some of the equipment we'll need to fix the Zords. Both Ethan and Trent's Zords are pretty badly damaged, and it'll take the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to get them back online. "I've already had to cancel two dates on her because of commitments here, so we need to work quickly to make sure third time's the charm and I actually make it to the third. If you take Trent's Zord and I take Ethan's, we should work quickly."

"Just because I'll be fixing things doesn't mean I can't interrogate you," Hayley teases, but she takes the hint when I fix her with a death glare, and holds her hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll give it a rest. But you'd better be careful or the gossip hounds otherwise known as your students and the rest of the team _will_ get to hear of what's going on, and they won't be as merciful as I'm being."

"And don't I know it," I say under my breath. In a louder voice, I continue, "They won't know about it. Now, let's get on with fixing these Zords so the next time Mesogog decides to attack, we'll be ready."

_Kim_

So, two dates cancelled and still I go running back for more. It really is as though I'm sixteen all over again, even down to the minute dissection of gossip with Aisha on the phone on Sunday afternoon. She's on call, despondent and bored, and I'm in my apartment doing nothing in particular. A phone call was inevitable.

"Let me see if I've got this straight. You arranged to meet on Friday, he cancels but says he's incredibly sorry, and immediately reschedules for Saturday. Yet, on Saturday evening, he calls to cancel yet again, and reschedules for Monday. It's official, the fearless leader is a mass of contradictions," Aisha says. "If it were under any other circumstances I'd yell at you for being a sap, but it sounds as though something's up. Did he give you any kind of clue as to what made him cancel?"

I sigh, and wriggle to get in a more comfortable position on my couch. "No, except it was urgent, he was really sorry, and he wanted to explain it to me in person rather than on the phone. I thought it might have been something about work but I would have thought he'd tell me about it over the phone rather than make it sound so secretive."

"You know Tommy, ever the drama queen," Aisha reminds me, and I grin. He always did have the tendency to overreact at the strangest times, yet remain annoyingly calm whenever we were about to go into battle. "I think it'll be something small like he didn't have any clothes to wear, or has had a bad haircut and is waiting in vain for it to grow before he sees you again."

"He's promised me a Chinese meal on Monday," I inform Aisha. "I'm half-expecting him to cancel again, and the other part of me is stupidly excited about seeing him again. Am I setting feminism back fifty years?"

"Don't worry about it Kim, you and Tommy have always been the exception that proves the rule," Aisha assures me. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation – at least, reasonable by his standards. Let me know as soon as you do, then I can call him and laugh at him for being vain."

"I will, I will," I say, somewhat pacified by the reassurances of a best friend. "When will you be getting here over the weekend?"

"My vacation time starts Friday afternoon, so I'll start the drive early afternoon, and should be in Surfside by five," Aisha tells me. "I spoke to Kat earlier and she'll meet us in town while we're out. Trini has to wait for Jason to get home from work before she can leave Sally, but she said she shouldn't get here too late. I can't wait to go out with you guys and forget everything that's going on."

"Any developments on that front?" I ask.

"It's improved a little since we last spoke, he's graduated from being silent to merely skittish. He's talking in full sentences now, which is a step up from grunting to me, but he's hiding something, and I'm not sure what. Hopefully he'll snap out of it when he realises he can't get me to cook for him all over the weekend, and realise what he could be missing out on." There's more than a hint of bitterness in Aisha's tone, and I ask curiously,

"Do you really think he was considering ending it?"

"If there's no future in it, I'll end it myself," Aisha threatens. "Kim, I don't want you to doubt that I love him. I do, I love him more than anything, but if we're just coasting along and he sees me as someone to fill the time with, then I'm not willing to put up with that. I shouldn't have to."

"I know you shouldn't, but I've seen you two together, and I know that he feels the same way about you that you do about him," I comment. "I think you just scared the living daylights out of him, and he's taking a bit longer to recover than most people. Let's be honest, it's Rocky- the amount of food he's consumed over the years has probably finally slowed down his reflexes."

"We need a short break," Aisha says firmly. "And what better way to spend a weekend apart than with my best friend? I hope you're not going to be sickeningly loved-up with Tommy, and unable to console me. For the past three years, you've been my link to the single life, I don't want you to abandon me when I need someone to tell me men are stupid."

"I won't abandon you when you need me, Sha," I say. "Girls' night all the way."

"Good. Forget about the boy until tomorrow, Kim. Call up one of the people you work with, and see if they want to meet for drinks. Get out of the house, do something to take your mind off things."

"I'm throwing that advice right back at you," I tell her, knowing that she's right. I won't call anyone from work, but I'll go for a walk. That much I can do. "I'll speak to you during the week."

"Damn right you will, I want to know how tomorrow night's date goes," Aisha warns me. "I expect a phone call bright and early on Tuesday morning, full of gossip and things to entertain me while I'm at work."

"I'm not promising anything," I demur, and smile. "If you're speaking to Rocky, tell him I said hi, but frown while you do it so he knows I'm not happy with him."

"Now, that I can do," Aisha says. "I'll call you Tuesday."

I hang up the phone, and determine that I will do something productive. I'll go to the gym. I haven't done any regimented exercise for quite some time, but the routine of the gym should keep my mind off wondering if I am being walked over, despite what Aisha said, and with the bonus of burning off more calories than sitting on my couch vegetating. Ever since I gave up gymnastics I've tried to keep myself in shape, and have done pretty well considering I work long hours and have lost much of the willpower which kept me going during my training.

I go to my bedroom and find my gym bag, and start to pack workout clothes, my Walkman and a bottle of water. If I don't think about it, maybe it'll all turn out okay. Maybe Tommy's secret _will_ turn out to be something innocuous. Maybe my mother will decide she really doesn't want to come visit and I won't have to deal with entertaining her and my stepdad for two weeks. Maybe tomorrow the problems at work will miraculously disappear and I won't have to resign like I've been thinking about.

Then again, maybe I'm only putting it off for a day, and the problems will all come back tomorrow. Any respite from bad thoughts is better than none at all…

_Tommy_

I'm pretty sure now that the fates are indeed conspiring to piss me off as much as is humanly possible. I can think of no other reason why as soon as I get into my car to drive up to San Felipe, my communicator chimes. I hope against hope that it's Conner playing with the system again to tell me that something cool has just happened at the Cyberspace, but no. Apparently, that's too much to ask for.

"Tommy, it's Hayley. I know you had other plans today but you're going to have to get back here right away. Mesogog and Elsa are wreaking havoc once again, and we're going to need all five of you to finish them off."

I sigh loudly, and restrain myself from banging my head against the steering wheel. "Alright, I'll be straight there." I turn the engine on, and speed to my place as soon as possible. Surely the threat can't be too dangerous if I'm being summoned to my place rather than the battlefield?

No such luck, as I get home in record time to find all five of my cohorts huddled round the viewing screen, looking at the scenes unfolding in what can only be described as horror. From what I can see over their heads, Mesogog, Elsa and Zeltrax have got a group of school kids about six years younger than the Rangers hostage.

It's times like these where I forget I've seen most of this before. Until you've lived through it yourself and come through the other side, you tend to forget that evil aliens can do terrible things, and you have to use your horror at the situation against them in order to defeat them.

"Okay guys, here's what we're going to do," I say authoritatively, and five people jump in unison, none of them having heard me make my way into the basement. I refrain from commenting on their lack of awareness skills, instead issuing orders as to how we're going to rescue the school kids. "I'll take Ethan and Trent, and we'll distract the head guys – using the Zords if we have to, but we'll avoid it if we can, as they're still not 100 after the fight on Friday. Conner, Kira, I'm going to need you to get into where they're being kept without being seen, and rescue the kids. I don't care how you do it, but they can't be harmed in any way. Any questions?"

"Yeah, what were the other plans that you had for this afternoon?" Conner asks wickedly, and I sigh. He's matured a lot since becoming the Red Ranger, but it's days like these when you remember they're still only seventeen, and strangely fascinated with the life of their mentor.

"Something that shouldn't have to wait, but is going to have to," I say briskly. "We won't leave the scene until they give up – we're not at completely full strength, but they won't be either. Hopefully they'll have fewer resources than us, and we can finish it quick enough. Let's go." I prepare to morph, but Hayley suddenly shouts,

"Tommy, wait!" I turn to her, exasperatedly, and she says quickly, "Do you want me to ring and cancel your dentist appointment? They charge you if you don't make your allotted slot." The look in her eyes as well as the subtext hammers it home that she's talking about Kim, although she doesn't know the subject of the appointment. I look at my watch, and quickly calculate that if the fight goes well, I can make it without being _too_ late.

"If this goes well, I should make it on time. Thanks for offering Hayley, but it'll be fine." With that, the team morphs hurriedly, and we run to the site where the hostages are being kept, an abandoned building site where a swimming pool was meant to be constructed until the money with which to fund the project ran out.

Elsa stands at the entrance to the site, blocking any hope we had of getting Conner and Kira in there straight off without being noticed. "Took your time, didn't you Rangers? I suppose some of us have prior commitments we need to deal with first?" She glares at me, for some unknown reason, and then suddenly shouts, "You're going nowhere quickly!"

Guess I won't be making it to San Felipe an hour late, after all…

I had figured their powers would have taken a large hit since Friday, but all of them seem as strong as ever. Even with the use of my, Trent and Ethan's Zords, it takes at least an hour to force an opening through which Conner and Kira can go to reach the kids. And through the opening, they still have to deal with at least thirty Tyrannodrones, while we try to fend off Elsa and Zeltrax, as well as a strangely formed monster which resembles a calculator slightly, with what seems to be number pads on its chest.

"What are we going to do?" Trent asks worriedly. "They don't seem affected at all, and they're not even showing any weaknesses. That calculator thing sure looks strange, but it's taking every hit we aim at it, and coming back with more."

"Hopefully, as soon as Conner and Kira get the kids out of there, they'll realise their hostages have been rescued, and give up," I say grimly, all the while knowing it's more than likely this won't be the case. Both Elsa and Zeltrax have displayed personal grudges against me in the past, and there's no reason why this should be any different. My communicator beeps, and I take my eyes off the controls of my Zord to answer the call. "What's up?"

"Requesting permission to take the hostages back to town in our Zords," Kira says, sounding more than a little out of breath. "No-one's noticed we've got them outside yet, but it's only a matter of time, and they're too small to run for a long time back to school."

"Do whatever it takes, just get them there and then come back here if the fight's still going on," I instruct, and close the link. As soon as I do that, I see Conner and Kira's Zords appear in the distance to spirit the kids back to their parents who must be worried sick, and then my communicator beeps again.

"Listen, I've figured out a way to beat the calculator," Hayley informs me. "The numbers on his chest are connected to his programming somehow, he really is a robot. If you can press the code 5768, he'll automatically self-destruct, and that should force Elsa and Zeltrax to withdraw."

"Hayley, you're a genius!" Ethan yells behind me, as we manipulate the controls of our combined Zords to use the arm to type in the code. As can only be expected, we meet heavy resistance, but with the three of us, we eventually manage to type in the code, with a few minor errors along the way. Sure enough, Hayley was right, and the monster explodes in sparks that shoot up into the dusky sky, and Elsa and Zeltrax shake their fists, yell a few choice insults, and disappear back to Mesogog's lair to plan their next strategy.

Hang on a minute… dusk? How long has this fight lasted, anyway?

"Well done, guys," Hayley says over the open link. "Conner and Kira have just reunited the kids with the worried parents, and they're on their way back. Oh, and Tommy, your phone has rung about twenty times since you've been gone. I think the dentist's place was trying to get hold of you."

I wait until I'm safely back in the basement and demorphed before daring to check my watch.

Oh shit. It's seven thirty, and I'm officially a dead man.

Hayley hands me my phone with a worried look, and Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent look very interested in what I'm doing as I listen to the verbal abuse Kim has left on my answer phone. It's nothing more than I deserve, I should have listened to Hayley before we left and called Kim to let her know I wasn't going to be able to make it.

"Dr O, are you okay? You look like you've had bad news," Kira says concernedly as I hang up the phone and debate with myself whether to call Kim back now, as the message was only left ten minutes ago, or leave her to calm down and ring her later.

"The dental surgery is fining me for not turning up," I say distractedly, and look around for my car keys, which I'm pretty sure I threw on the floor as I came in earlier in the afternoon.

"They'll be closed now, you can't go and pay it till the morning," Ethan says, missing the looks that Hayley and I are shooting each other.

"I'm not going there, I need to get some milk and something to eat this evening," I say, finally locating my keys under Trent's coat. "We'll debrief tomorrow, but it was a good job well done, guys. See you tomorrow," I yell back, as I sprint out of the house, and into my car.

I've been putting this off for too long, and it may have cost me my relationship with my first love and best friend. It's time to face the music, and if it means a long drive after a gruelling fight, then it's no less than I deserve.

_Kim_

I arrive home in a foul mood, having spent the car journey yelling insults at men in general. Every male driver was the subject of a tirade about how men are unreliable, useless, and not to be trusted. I may have been overreacting slightly, but can you blame me? After three broken dates, I deserve to have very little faith in those with the Y chromosome. I also deserve to be hit very hard over the head for having believed Tommy when he said he'd turn up this afternoon, but I settle for stopping off at the

convenience store near me and buying the biggest tub of ice-cream I can find.

I don't call anyone or do anything, even though the answer phone message light is blinking at me from across the room. I choose instead to find a clean spoon in the cutlery drawer in the kitchen, and dig into my carton of ice-cream.

The only men this girl needs in her life are Ben and Jerry; any others are superfluous.

I don't cry – why would I? I had doubts all along, but they were outweighed by what seemed to be a relentless feeling that entering into some kind of relationship with Tommy was the right thing to do. Obviously, I was wrong. So, even though I'm close to tears through sheer frustration, let alone disappointment, I choose instead to take out my anger on the ice-cream, and manage to demolish half the tub before I feel sick and have to stop.

My breathing slows down, and I place the ice-cream on the floor. Much as I would like to call him again and yell at him for an explanation, I resist – if he wants to explain himself, then he'll have to make his move first. I'm done with falling for excuses and waiting for him to call. I'll move on, with or without him.

I reach for the phone, about to call Aisha and join her in another "Men are idiots" rant, when the buzzer to my apartment rings insistently. I ignore it – it'll either be the guy from next door forgetting his keys for the third time this month, or Mrs Jacobs using a new trick to get me to keep the noise down. The person pressing the buzzer has other ideas to me however, as the noise simply does not stop, and if I don't want to lose my hearing, it leaves me no choice but to stomp over to my intercom and growl in a not entirely accommodating tone, "What do you want?"

"It's me. Can I come up?"


	5. Chapter 5

Author's notes: Thanks once again to everyone who's been reviewing. To Grey17 and C2, hopefully your points will have been addressed in this chapter! I still don't have regular net access so I can't guarantee when the next chapter will be posted, but I'm having so much fun writing this that it shouldn't be long before Chapter 6 is finished and posted. All reviews are gratefully appreciated, so please read and review!

Dedication: To all those affected by 7/7, including friends and relatives caught up in the aftermath.

Kim

So, what do I do now? Do I let him in and allow him to grovel to me with excuses, or leave him outside to keep ringing the doorbell and hope against hope that he'll go away? Although I feel as though I'm letting down the sisterhood by pandering to the wishes of men, I reluctantly let Tommy in. I try to tell myself that I'm only doing it to avoid excessive amounts of noise and harassment from Mrs Jacobs, but the sad, pathetic truth is that I want to hear his excuse. More than that, I want to believe whatever he tells me.

It takes Tommy less than two minutes to get from the lobby of my building to the fifth floor, and during that time I slump into the chair furthest away from the door, and fold my arms. I may be weak in letting him in and wanting to believe his excuse, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy for him.

There's a knock on the door, and I yell, "It's open," without bothering to move. Polite but detached is probably the best way to play this; I need to know what's going on, and alienating Tommy by acting like a deranged madwoman probably won't make him conducive to spilling secrets. In fact, it would probably encourage him to stay quiet.

Although it takes more willpower than I thought I had, I manage to remain still when he

walks into the room, and refrain from turning to gaze at him. And even though I promised to myself that I'd behave, somehow I find myself saying, "Take a wrong turn and end up two and a half hours to the north? Wrong place, wrong time, Tommy."

Whoops. Even though he deserves that, and more, for cancelling two dates and then leaving me to sit alone for the duration of the third without a phone call, I still feel bad. Why am I such a pushover? I decide to avoid further trouble by not adding to my insult, and bite my lower lip to remain quiet, still not looking at him; instead putting all my energy into listening to any noise being made to my right while I stare into the kitchen as though the front of my refrigerator is the most interesting thing in the world. Granted, it has a postcard of Paris on it sent by my mother, but there's only so long you can stare at a view of the Eiffel Tower before becoming mind-numbingly bored. Tommy must know that I'm ignoring him, and I can hear a couple of steps being taken towards me, before he thinks better of it and sits on the couch.

"Kim, I know I… I know you're pissed at me, and I deserve everything you're going to throw at me, ten times over. But before you read me the riot act, I'd appreciate if you'd let me explain what's been going on. I haven't been straight with you, and it's not fair on you."

"Damn right it's not," I blurt out, and then return to biting my lip, except I'm so tense I accidentally draw blood. "Carry on then, tell me what's been going on," I instruct, after a pause that lasts centuries. What follows is a garbled mess of murmurings that I hope wasn't meant to make sense. I can only make out certain words and phrases, such as 'thought Jason had told you', 'black eye', and 'students'.

"You were beaten up by one of your students?" I ask incredulously, finally turning round to look at Tommy. He doesn't look as though he's been beaten up. Granted, he doesn't look as though he's shaved for the past couple days, but I guess a student could have punched him in the stomach or something.

He looks as confused as I am. "I didn't say that!" he protests.

"Well, what did you say?" I nearly scream, surprising even myself with how loud it came out. I only meant to say it, so I dial the volume down a little for my rant. "All I heard was something about students and a black eye, what the hell am I supposed to think? You left me in a roadside dive for three hours without even a courtesy call to say you couldn't be bothered to turn up, Tommy. That's the third date in four days that you've cancelled. Any sane person would say I almost deserve an explanation, perhaps even the truth?"

Now it's Tommy's turn to bite his lip, looking as though that action's the only thing stopping him from saying something he'd regret. He jumps up from the couch and strides over to stare at the window, where he stays for what seems like a lifetime. From the angle I'm sitting at, I can't read the expression on his face, and the suspense is starting to get to me. I have a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that he's going to break it off, whatever 'it' may be. It's pathetic to say I was half-falling in love with him after less than two weeks together, but unfortunately, true, and as much as I could cheerfully strangle him for what he's put me through over the past 72 hours, the cold truth is that I don't want to lose him.

So, with that in mind, I get up from the chair, and move over to join him at the window, staring down into the streets of Surfside. Doing so seems to have startled Tommy out of his reverie, and he looks down at me ruefully after dragging himself out of whatever dreamland he's obviously fallen prey to. We seem to be making a habit of that around each other at the moment…

"You're going to kill me for this," he says quietly, and my blood runs cold. Does he have a secret wife he's been cheating on with me? Did he steal all my bank account details when we went for coffee the first time and go to the Caribbean over the weekend?

"Try me," I respond at the same volume. "I'll probably kill you even if you don't admit to me what's been going on, so you lose either way," I admit. I don't expect what he says next, which is,

"How true."

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I stay silent, mulling possibilities over and over in my mind, while he turns back to the window. Finally, he speaks again.

"Kim, I need you to know… I have to tell you what happened, what is happening, but you're going to think I didn't trust you, and that's really not how it all happened. I know you're going to hate me, and probably will never want to see me again, but you have to realise that I never meant it to turn out this way."

Ah. Whatever it is, this does not bode well, and the sinking feeling just got ten times worse. What else can I say, except "Tell me."?

A huge sigh, and then Tommy begins. "You know that I had to leave my graduate work on the island because there was a fire, and all the work we'd done was destroyed?"

This was definitely not the direction I expected this conversation to take. I was waiting for the whole 'Kim, you're a really nice person, but this isn't going to work' speech. By this stage in my life, I could probably recite it with him, word for word, the amount of times I've heard it from dates I've been on since I broke up with Josh and before this whole drama with Tommy emerged. Originality and men do not necessarily go hand in hand. "Yeah…" I say uncertainly.

He sighs, and turns round to lean against the window and face back into the room. "Someone, somehow, got hold of the work we were doing, and isn't exactly using it for the purposes of good."

Somewhere, somehow, a switch is clicking in my mind, and an idea is growing as to where the conversation may be leading, and if he's going to say what I think he is, he has every reason to be worried about my reaction. I give him the benefit of the doubt however, and say in an even voice, "In what way?" while still staring in the opposite direction, over Surfside and the lights that are beginning to appear in the streets.

"Three … I don't know what to call them, inter-galactic idiots, have used the dinosaur technology to attack the planet. Except, they started with Reefside."

Even though I had an idea this was coming, I still didn't want it to be true. "You've got involved with the new team, haven't you? When are you going to learn that although you were the best ranger we've ever had, the rest of us have moved on, which kind of signals that maybe you should do the same? As if you and Jason weren't bad enough with the whole mission to the moon thing." I swivel to look at him, and although he looks suitably sheepish after my nicely-worded rebuke, I can tell from the apprehension in his eyes, which refuse to meet mine, that I may not have hit the nail on the head entirely, and there's still part of the tale to be told. "Oh god, there's more to it than that, isn't there? Tell me."

"I didn't ask to be involved, Kim," Tommy says softly. "I found gems… power sources. And three of my students – I guess four now, actually, but that's another story – bonded to them, at around the same time Reefside came under attack. At first, they were the only rangers, and I was just there as an advisor, doling out advice on how they should deal with attacks. What was I supposed to do, abandon them?" he questions angrily on seeing my incredulous expression. But I can't help looking incredulous at this point, because I've seen the newest rangers on television, and there's always been something that's struck me about the people who must be behind the uniforms.

"There are five rangers, Tommy," I say softly. "I may not be an expert on this latest reincarnation, but I know that one of them is probably a little older than the others, definitely broader than them, about your height, and takes charge of battles when things are going wrong. I guess that's you?"

He nods regretfully, and I feel strangely numb. The anger will come, I know that much. But this is a hell of a lot to take in. I'd thought we'd all done a great job of getting on with our lives after leaving the 'good squad' as Rocky had nicknamed us, maybe apart from Tommy and Jason gallivanting off to the moon a couple years back. And now I'm confronted with this bombshell that in fact, Tommy just can't stay away. I shouldn't be shocked – after all, didn't I just call him the greatest ranger ever?

My thoughts are moving incredibly slowly, and it takes a lot longer than it should have done for me to start putting two and two together once more. I turn to look at Tommy only to find him already staring at me warily.

We always seem to look at each other when we're together without talking. I hope he's prepared for our relationship to suddenly get a whole lot more vocal. "Tommy… this team's been around for a year," I say, still in the same quiet tone of voice. I hope he realises I won't be quiet for much longer, because it's about to get a hell of a lot louder from my end of the conversation.

"Yeah," he admits, still watching me closely. I leave a pause a few seconds longer, before screaming,

"Why the _fuck_ didn't you tell me?"

Tommy 

There it is. I knew the somewhat detached courtesy couldn't last forever – at some stage, the screaming had to start. It's not as though I haven't been expecting it, and god knows I deserve it, but still it takes me by surprise.

"It wasn't as though I deliberately set out to keep you in the dark about it," I reason. "As soon as I became a ranger again, I didn't call everyone else I knew, tell them the joyous news, and then add on 'Oh, be sure not to tell Kim about this, it'll be really fun to keep it a secret and then laugh when she finds out'."

"Really?" she snaps, holding my gaze with a nasty look which she must practise in front of the mirror in order to get the correct proportion of venom in without actually killing people. It's definitely gone up a few notches since our teenage years. "Seeing as you've kept me in the dark for over a year, I think it's about time you enlighten me as to how I ended up not knowing about your newly continued illustrious career, presumably being the only one out of our _entire_ group of friends who was out of the loop."

I sigh, and shift my gaze away from hers. I would prefer not to be turned into a statue once again; I've had enough of that to last a lifetime. "I hadn't spoken to you for a while – since before I left to go work on the island. It would have seemed weird to suddenly call you up and say 'hey, long time since we spoke, I've been on an exploding island and become a ranger since we last spoke, what have you been up to?' "

"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard," Kim said scathingly. "I know for a fact you haven't spoken to Zack for a couple of years, yet I'm guessing he knows about your latest reincarnation – how's that excuse supposed to hold up with him? Is there some ex-Ranger newsletter that I've been missed off the subscription list for?"

"Yes, Kim, I'm fully aware it's a bad excuse. I hate to break it to you, but it's the truth, and there's not a lot that I can do about it now," I say a little more harshly than I intended. "I only told Jason myself. I was snowed under, confused, pissed off, and I asked him to pass on the message to everyone else. I never told him not to tell you, I swear to you. I wouldn't do that to you. I think Jason must have assumed that because we were pretty good friends before I left, I'd have told you already."

"And you assumed Jason would tell everyone, and not think you'd already told someone," Kim says neutrally, and I risk a sideways glance at her, only to find her staring out the window once more, deep in thought, and soon enough I also revert to staring through the glass at the sprawling view of Surfside. "Why didn't you tell me when you saw me again?"

she asks after about a minute of awkward silence.

"The first time I saw you, I didn't have a clue that you didn't know about my … uh, second job," I tell her. "I was a bit surprised you didn't mention it when we were in the café, I called Jason, and it turned out that he hadn't told you. I was going to tell you when we met the second time, but we got, uh, distracted…" I smile slightly in the near-darkness at the memory, and then it fades as I wonder if I've messed this up so badly that would be the last time Kim and I got that close. "I was going to tell you over the weekend, but then I kept on having to cancel, and I really didn't want to tell you over the phone. I owe you an explanation face-to-face, not chickening out and telling you over the phone."

She inclines her head slightly. "And why were all the potential unburdening sessions cancelled, exactly?"

I rub my chin, tired just by the thought of it. "Friday afternoon we were hit by a bad attack, which I was surprised by, because we'd weakened them pretty badly a few days before. Saturday and Sunday had to be spent repairing the Zords in case an attack happened again, even though we weren't sure that it would so quickly. As it turned out, it was a good thing I spent all Sunday fixing them, because as soon as school let out we were hammered, and it was as though we hadn't spent all last week attempting to weaken them. It was a long fight, and I spent all of it out in the field. I wasn't expecting it to be that long, which was why I didn't call you and warn you I could be late." I don't mention the black eye, which luckily had faded by the time I got up that morning, and left me very thankful for accelerated healing powers. "As soon as I got back and realised the time, I drove to Surfside to find you and apologise."

"Okay," Kim nods, but doesn't say anything else. There is silence for another few minutes, during which I try desperately to avoid asking Kim what was going to happen to us, and to refrain from looking at her. I know enough about Kim to know she needs to be left to make her decisions without influence; but the silence begins to get to me. With nothing to distract me, my thoughts begin to take unwelcome turns, and I wonder how I'm going to live without her again should she decide that trust has been broken irreparably. I don't think I could be just friends with her again having taken the first tentative steps towards becoming something more; which would mean going back to a situation similar to that of the first couple of years after she'd broken up with me. And believe me, that doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

Suddenly, she twists around again to face me side-on, and I do the same so we're facing each other. My eyes meet hers, and there's no outright hatred in her brown eyes, so I take that as a good sign. I have no idea what she's reading in mine, but it's probably panic.

"It's never going to work out the way it should, is it?" she says, and I feel a sensation similar to that you get on a rollercoaster when your stomach seems to drop out from beneath you.

"What do you mean?" I ask, hoping and praying that she doesn't mean what I think she means.

"We always get our wires crossed… I mean, if our friends were to be believed, we should never have split up in the first place. And then we should have got together when we were good friends before you went to the island, even though we were both seeing other people. Now, when we're finally both single, and can openly admit that we want each other without blushing bright red, this happens, and it makes me wonder if, despite everything, someone up there just doesn't want us to be together."

Oh, shit. "And do you believe that?" I ask carefully, crossing my toes in my shoes, and wondering whether she'd notice if I cross my eyes as well for luck.

"No," Kim says slowly, turning away from me for the thousandth time, unable to meet my gaze. "But… I need some time. I know it's the biggest cliché in the world, but I need to think this over. There's nothing more in the world that I would want than to carry on where we left off on Wednesday, but I can't just forget what's happened. It annoys me that you didn't tell me straight away, I'm so angry with everyone for not even thinking to tell me, and I know that if I rush into anything I'm going to regret it. Just… give me some time? Please?"

As if I could refuse her anything after this fiasco. I could never refuse her anything before, and now I feel as though I'll be in her debt forever. I feel the need to grovel to her for even considering forgiving me, but I know that will seem like going over the top to her. "Kim, you know I'd give you anything you want," I remind her softly, and she turns back to face me. It doesn't surprise me that I can see the beginning of tears in her eyes, and I can't help but reach over to wipe them away tenderly.

It shocks me when she pulls me closer and kisses me on the lips, but not enough to make me pull away. In fact, I pull her closer to me, and make the most of the kiss – the way she's biting down slightly on my lips, feeling her hair under my fingers as I push it out of her eyes, and the overall feeling that nothing else will ever feel this right in the world to me ever again.

Yet somehow, it still feels like a goodbye.

After not nearly long enough, she pulls out of my embrace, although I do my best to keep her there. I can't shake the feeling that this is the last time…

"I'll call you," she promises with a shaking voice, and I know that the kiss has affected her as well. "I won't be able to think of much else… I won't keep you wondering for long. But I need some time on my own."

"I understand," I say to her, making a real effort to keep my voice under control. I really wish I didn't understand how she was feeling, because then I could legitimately get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me. But I put her into this position, and now I have to wait and see what she decides. "Take as long as you need."

She smiles slightly, and I walk to the door, twisting back to take one last glance at her. Her apartment is now almost completely void of light, and her expression is hidden in shadows. Any apology now is meaningless – I need to leave her to make up her own mind. "Goodbye, Kim."

"Bye, Tommy," I hear her say quietly behind me as I start to shut the door, and I pause for a few seconds, as I send up a silent prayer to whatever is up there that this won't be the last time I see this apartment, that this won't be a final goodbye.

Because it sure feels like one.

Kim 

I spent the entire weekend wishing him here, and now I've wished him away. How ironic.

He pauses for a second as he hears me say goodbye, and there's nothing more I would want to do than call him back and tell him everything's fine. Tell him that he's forgiven, and continue that mind-blowing kiss that we started minutes before. But the words don't come, and he leaves.

The explosive anger that I expected to last for longer left as quickly as it came, and now all I feel is drained. Calls to Aisha and the Scott household need to be made, but I sink to the floor, sit on the carpet and stare unseeingly into the middle distance. I'm glad I'm resisting calling anyone while I'm in this mindset – it would lead to saying something I'm sure I'd regret, and I need to be alert whilst calling. That can be my project for tomorrow morning instead of going into work. I'd be no good to them anyway in this state, and my time would be better spent working out what to do with my life than overseeing a pitch for a new kind of egg-timer promotional campaign.

Hey, I never said I worked for a glamorous company.

Unfortunately, all the yelling and heartache must have tired me out more than I thought, as I end up sleeping on the floor. Despite me having read in countless magazines that sleeping on the floor does your back a wealth of good, I am now in a position to note that actually, it does nothing of the sort. It's a good thing I had already decided I wasn't going into work today, as when I force myself off the floor I'm unable to walk in a normal manner, and consequently end up waddling across the room to the telephone.

I call work and tell them in a monotone that I think I have the flu, and ask for two days sick leave to assess my illness, which I'm thankfully awarded. I don't, strictly speaking, need two days to sort my life out, but days off are always welcome, and I can use them to get my posture back to normal after assessing my next actions.

I slept for a surprisingly long time considering I wasn't in my own, comfortable, bed, and I'd just been hit with a bombshell that had the effect of turning my life upside down. I figure that Jason should be in work by now, unless he's been enlisted to look after Sally for the day. I find his number in my cell phone, and press the 'call' button. Although Aisha and Trini also deserve rebukes, I'm more than a little angry with my oldest friend for 'assuming' I'd already been told, and then not getting in first to tell me once Tommy had informed him I had no idea of his latest role.

The phone buzzes twice before someone on the other end picks up, and I hear a cool and collected voice say, "Jason Scott."

I cut straight to the chase, no time for pleasantries. The anger which was somehow lacking last night has found its way to me in the cold light of day, and although I can see why Jason could have thought I would already have been told, and that some of this dissatisfaction should by rights be directed at Tommy, I'm on the phone to Jason now, and I need to rant. "I have a bone to pick with you," I say. "Just how long were you planning on keeping me in the dark about the whole boyfriend-being-a-ranger thing?" There's a pause, and he can't blame it on the phone line being faulty, as I can hear him breathing. "I can hear you breathing Jase, I know you're there," I remind him.

"Kim, I… I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I promise, but Tommy said he'd tell you himself."

"What about when he told you originally, and asked you to tell everyone else? Did I just slip your mind, which would be insulting enough to think that you 'forgot' me after 22 years of friendship, or did you purposely leave me out of the loop so everyone could laugh at me?" I demand. Deep down, I understand what actually happened, and that's the problem. But I need to make Jason realise what's gone on, and just how hurt I feel by the fact that, however inadvertently, all my friends have been keeping a huge secret from me for the past year.

"How could you think I would leave you out of this on purpose, Kim?" Jason retorts, and I'm placated slightly. "You're one of my oldest friends, and the only reason I didn't tell you in the first place is because I was positive that Tommy would have told you already! You two were always emailing each other and talking on the phone; however wrong it may have been, I assumed that he'd have told you first instead of me, or would have told you straight after me."

"And it never became obvious that I didn't know about the whole scenario?" I ask sceptically, even though I already know the answer.

"You were in Boston, Kim!" Jason reminds me. "There was never a reason to bring it up on the phone or in emails, and we hardly ever saw each other while you were there. We all talked about it at Sally's christening, but you couldn't make it because you were tied up with moving back to the west coast. I appreciate that what happened wasn't fair to you at all, but you have to understand that it wasn't really anyone's fault. I know you're hurt by this, and I'm sorry, but it's not as though we've all been sitting around having weekly meetings discussing Tommy's return to being a Ranger – it's his responsibility, and none of us have got involved."

I sigh, and waddle back over to the couch, where I sprawl out, wondering why I didn't decide to mope on a more comfortable surface last night. "I know Jase, I'm sorry for the yelling. I guess I just needed to rant at someone, and I knew that Tommy had told you I didn't know a while back. I know it's not your fault."

"When did he tell you?" Jason asks.

"After he jilted me for the third time in four days, he drove up to Surfside and explained everything," I explain, and close my eyes. "I know it's all a big breakdown of communications, but I'm so angry at him for not telling me himself as soon as things started to happen. Even if you had been the one to tell me as soon as you knew, I think I'd still be annoyed."

"I think you need to talk to Trini," Jason says awkwardly. "She's at home today with Sally, why don't you give her a call? I think she'd probably be in a better position to be able to help."

I smile at Jason's inherently male ability to pass on dealing with emotions. Although he'd be there for me whatever the problem, he doesn't really like to talk about feelings and stuff. To be fair, Trini would deal with it a lot better than he could. "That's a good idea, I'll give her a call now. I've taken a sick day, so I have all the time in the world."

"Why don't you drive up and spend the night?" Jason suggests. "We've got a comfortable sofa-bed, and we'd both love to see you. I know Trini's coming on your girls' night at the weekend, but we were only saying yesterday how long it's been since we've seen you."

"That's a great idea," I say, perking up. It wouldn't take me long at all to pack an overnight bag and drive to their place, and it may be just the thing I need to cheer me up.

"Don't blame Trini for any of this," Jason says quietly. "I know you'd never say anything to her which would lead her to feel guilty, but you have to remember that when Tommy became involved she was six months pregnant and miserable. It's not as watertight an excuse for me, I was more switched on to what was going around me than she was, but at that time she was obsessing over bringing a child into the world. I think she probably assumed the same thing I did, but she had less time and opportunity to think it through."

"I wouldn't blame her for anything, Jase," I reassure him. "And I know you guys weren't really at fault. I don't even really believe that Tommy was wholly in the wrong… I think it was just a huge case of crossed wires, and I was the one who got burned."

"I know it's not really any of my business, but are you and him still seeing each other?" Jase enquires awkwardly, and I sigh.

"I don't know. I told him last night that I need more time to think this through, and he seemed okay with that. Hopefully, talking things through a little with you guys will help get my thoughts in order."

"Doctor Trini should cure you," Jason teases, and I know we're okay. "I have to get back to work Kim, but I'll see you tonight. Give Trini a surprise and turn up on the doorstep, she'll be ecstatic to see you."

"Maybe," I grin. "See you tonight, Jase."

I hang up the phone, and waddle back to my bedroom to find and pack an overnight bag to take to their home. Hopefully, this trip will do what Jason predicted, and sort my head out. Because I don't know how long I can cope with the turmoil that's prevailing at the moment…

Tommy

I don't recommend going in to teach six periods of rowdy teenagers the night after severe emotional turmoil. Once students get the slightest hint that their teacher may be a little distracted, all hell breaks loose.

Luckily, I manage to keep any distractions as far out of my mind as possible, and teach my classes with one part of my brain focusing on the lesson plan, and the other part wondering every five seconds whether Kim's come to any decision yet. It's a miracle I don't start talking to myself about my utter stupidity and give my students something to talk about.

Unfortunately, there is a select group of students who tend to know when something's up, and as soon as I arrive back home and trudge down to the basement, I find four pairs of eager eyes watching my every move while I slump down in my favourite chair and wish for the day to be over.

"Are you okay, Dr. O?" Kira asks cautiously, not taking her eyes off me. "You seemed a little distracted during class again today."

"Is it worrying about Mesogog and his troupe of idiots that's getting you down? Because if it is, don't sweat it. We've beaten them all the time before, I know we can do it again," Trent speaks up, and while I appreciate the encouragement, that wasn't what was troubling me. Even though it probably should have.

"No… no, it's not that. It's nothing for you guys to worry about, so don't worry. I'm fine," I attempt to convince them, but none of them look satisfied.

"Is it girl trouble?" Conner asks with a smirk on his face, and is promptly rewarded with elbows in the ribs from Ethan on one side of him and Kira on the other. I hope to all the gods above that my face doesn't turn a deep shade of scarlet.

"It's none of your business, Conner. In case you haven't noticed, we're facing adversaries that keep getting stronger against the odds. That should be the main focus of our attention, not meaningless speculation."

If only I could take my own advice.

"Hayley was mentioning yesterday after you left that we should analyse the last couple of battles to see how things have changed from the way they used to attack us previously," Ethan intercepts, for which I will be eternally grateful. "Should we do that now, Dr O?"

Why didn't I think of that? Oh, yeah. Because I spent half the night up worrying that I'd messed up the most important relationship of my life. Funnily enough, saving the world didn't really come into it, even though that was the reason Kim and I are in so much trouble, however inadvertently.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," I say, and swivel round to switch on the computer which will help us locate Mesogog's weaknesses. "Ethan, did Hayley say what time she'd be here today? We could probably use her help in this."

"No need to wonder, I'm here," Hayley says cheerfully, and comes up to the group. "What do you want my help for?" She looks closely at me, and the expression in her eyes says I'm going to get a severe grilling sooner or later as to why I look so tired.

"Dr O agreed that we should analyse the past few battles to see exactly what's been going on and pick up any weaknesses," Kira informs Hayley.

"Excellent. Why don't you four go and check over your Zords to see if they picked up any damage, and then come back and help us? We can't afford to go into battle with your Zords not being 100."

Kira, Conner, Ethan and Trent troop out of the basement, and I stare determinedly at the computer screen as images begin to appear. "So, do you have any idea as to what we're looking to expose with Mesogog?" I ask, hoping against hope that she'll run with my conversation starter, and not devise one of her own.

No such luck. "None at all. Why do you look so exhausted? What time did you get back?" Hayley asks, and looks at me imploringly. "I take it you went to see Kim?"

She doesn't sound disapproving, which is definitely a good start. "Yeah. But I never told you that she didn't know about me being back in the game again, which she didn't find out until I told her last night. Let's just say it didn't go down too well."

"Why didn't you tell her?" Hayley asks incredulously. "I can understand you not telling Megan, she didn't have a clue about your prior involvement. But how long have you been back in contact with Kim without telling her?"

"About two weeks," I admit, and lean back in my chair, rubbing my chin unthinkingly. "It was never the right time… I only saw her twice, and then I had to keep cancelling dates because we kept getting hit by attacks. She left a highly annoyed message on my answer phone yesterday because I was supposed to meet her three hours before the fight finished, and I drove up to Surfside to tell her the truth."

"Did you keep her out of the loop on purpose? That doesn't sound like something you would do."

"It isn't, and I didn't. When the gems were first activated, I called Jason and asked him to pass on the message to everyone. He must have assumed that I'd already talked to Kim, because he didn't tell her. I probably should have told her myself, but I didn't. Then, it must never have been mentioned in e-mails or meetings, because she had no idea until last night that I was a ranger again."

"And everyone else knew? I'm not surprised the news didn't go down too well," Hayley comments, watching me closely still. "Is it over between the two of you?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. I don't think she wants it to be, but she said she needs more time to sort her thoughts out. I can't blame her for it, but it's driving me insane."

Hayley looks at me sympathetically, and is about to say something when I hear my phone ring upstairs. I run out of the basement and up the stairs with embarrassing haste, but the phone must have been ringing for some time, as when I get there it is silent, and a light flashes on my answer phone.

I realise the caller couldn't have been Kim, anyway, as she only has my cell number unless she asked Jase or someone else for it. I press the button, and hear a message from Jase.

"Hey, bro, from all accounts the shit has hit the fan, and yours truly was the object of Kim's anger this morning. She's calmed down now though, and she's coming to stay with us for the night. Give me a call at work tomorrow, and I'll pass on anything I think may be of interest to you."

The message ends, and I walk slowly back down to the basement. Hayley doesn't acknowledge my presence for a few moments, as she stares intently at the computer screen. I sit back down beside her, not sure what to make of the news that Kim is staying with Jason and Trini tonight, and Hayley finally looks up. "Kim?"

I shake my head. "Jason. Have you found anything?"

"I'm not sure. From what I can gather, Mesogog and Elsa have definitely got an extra power source to those which they've been using so far. Have you ever noticed them using this in fights before?" She pauses the action on the screen, and I notice a tiny object which could be a box, but the quality isn't brilliant, and to tell the truth it could be anything.

"Not that I can remember, you'd have to ask the others as well. Do you think it could be an extra source?"

"I don't remember them using it before last week, so I have a feeling they've got it from somewhere and have been using it to boost their power after we've drained it. I just need to run a few more tests to check it is actually exuding power, otherwise we'll be barking up the wrong tree."

"If it's a power source, we need to blow it up, right?" I confirm with my second-in-command in all Ranger decisions such as these. "Then we can continue to drain their power and hopefully get it all."

"Tommy, I know you guys have been holding back in the past few fights, but if this object does turn out to be a power source, and you can target it, I see no reason why you shouldn't continue the fight and finish them" Hayley admits. "Before they got this mysterious helping hand, there's no doubt they were getting a lot weaker. If we can get the source out of the picture then they'll be drained, and you can finish the war, instead of just the battle."

"I see your point," I agree. Although we were instructed never to escalate a battle more than we could help during the Zordon era, the slightly scary fact remains that I'm in the mentor position now, and Hayley's advice makes a hell of a lot of sense. Although I've enjoyed being a ranger again during the good times, the whole argument with Kim has brought the age issue back into contention, and balancing two responsible jobs and a social life has taken its toll. "Let's determine exactly what the source is. Then, we can decide once and for all how we're going to deal with this."

Dealing with a pissed off girlfriend, and dealing with saving the world. How did it ever come to this?


	6. Chapter 6

Author's notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. This is the second to last chapter, and it went a little differently than I had planned it, thanks to an idea given to me by Silver Warrior, to whom I am very grateful! Please read and review.

_"Love is the answer, at least to most of the questions in my heart," Jack Johnson, Better Together_

Kim

The night at Jason and Trini's is just what I need. It's a chance to catch up with two of my oldest, and best, friends, see my incredible growing goddaughter, and to get out of Surfside. Trini and I spend the afternoon playing with Sally and gossiping, and once Jason has arrived back home from work we skirt around anything to do with Rangering during an amzing dinner Trini and I managed to scrape together, and bathing Sally. It only comes to a head once Sally is safely asleep in her room, and the three of us are sitting in the living room.

We talk about my job, and Trini has the bright idea of taking some time off work to find out what I really want to do with my life. It's a valid point; I've been working in advertising since I left college, and although I've always enjoyed it; my promotion of sorts has made me see I don't really want a position of such responsibility. It alienates me from people I work with, and I don't feel entirely comfortable with throwing my weight around in order to get things done. Stupid as it might sound, I purged my ambitious streak when I did gymnastics, and although I'd like a job that I enjoy, Trini makes it clear that advertising was no longer it.

Well, actually, she says, "Get your head out of the sand and find a job that doesn't make you want to throw yourself out of the building. Oh, and let your boyfriend apologise to you while you're at it."

"Where did that come from?" I ask indignantly, although inwardly I know that it was only a matter of time before the subject came up, and I've been lucky enough to avoid the topic for this amount of time.

"Oh, come on Kim, you knew she was going to bring it up eventually," Jason pipes up from the corner of the room, where he sits sprawled out on an armchair.

"Yeah, yeah, I should be grateful I've deflected it for this long," I grumble, and put my glass of wine back on the coffee table so I can turn to face Trini more comfortably for the interrogation. "Besides, he's not even my boyfriend."

"So what would you prefer I call him? The love of your life?" Trini asks with an annoying grin on her face. I scowl at her, and she continues. "Did you ring him to let him know you were staying here tonight?"

"Why would I do that? I don't have to tell him where I am every moment of the day, especially as I'm so annoyed with him," I snap.

"I told him," Jason suddenly says, and it's his turn to be fixed with an evil glare.

"Why?"

"You'd been screaming down the phone line at me for ten minutes, I thought it was only fair to forewarn him that you were on the warpath and might be targeting him next. I got his machine though, he must have been at work already."

I sigh, and curl up into the sofa once more. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that this whole sorry situation is no-one's fault. It was just a whole sorry chain of events that ended up with people getting hurt who shouldn't have been. Still, I can't wholly banish the thought that maybe this wasn't meant to be after all, that we split up the first time for a reason, and that this was a repeat of that. How am I supposed to make a decision with two completely opposite thoughts commanding equal time in my head? "That's fine, I understand. But I don't want to speak to him until I'm sure I know what I want, and I'm still an emotional car crash."

"Kim, you know we are all so sorry about what happened," Trini says, leaning forward to give me a hug. "None of us wanted this to happen."

"I know that," I say, and return the hug gratefully. "It's just… difficult. I don't know whether fate's conspiring to get us together and this is just a quirky obstacle that has to be overcome, or destiny wants to split us apart after we accidentally met in a stationery store." Trini reverts back to her original position, and I sigh, stretching my feet out in front of me. "I thought moving back to California would be the best thing that ever happened to me. I thought it would sort my life out; but instead it's throwing up more problems than it solved."

"Are you saying you'd move back east?" Jason asks concernedly, and looks relieved when I shake my head decisively.

"No. I'm enjoying being back and closer to all of you guys. I'll seriously consider changing careers, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll have made a decision about Tommy as well."

"Kim… you can't split up with him because of this," Trini says imploringly. "I'm not talking as a psychiatrist here, I'm talking as your best friend who's known you longer than anyone else. It wasn't his fault, and you know how good the two of you are together when you're not working at cross-purposes. Even though he put off telling you, you can understand why he did it – he was scared of losing you again." I nod slowly. "And as for fate and destiny – why don't you make your own? You've lived your life the way you want to thus far, don't start worrying about whether the stars are conspiring against you at this stage. If it feels right, then go for it, and don't worry about anything else. The two of you can get through this if you know what you want and it's the same thing."

"I agree with my learned and correct wife," Jason says. "I'm not going to say the two of you have been miserable without each other, because you know as well as I do that that wouldn't be true. The two of you are good alone, but could be even better together. It's your decision to make, but you'll be unhappier without him than with him."

I sigh, for what seems like the millionth time since yesterday evening. "I think I'm going to bed. Sleep heals all wounds, and at least you can dream while you're asleep."

"What time are you staying until tomorrow?" Jason asks.

"I think I'll leave after lunch," I say. "I called in sick for two days, so I don't have any desire to go back to my empty apartment until I can help it. I don't want to hit the rush hour though, so I'll go in the early afternoon." I stand up, and hug both my friends, thankful that they didn't take my early morning rant to heart and that no grudges have been held. "What time are you going to arrive at my place for the party to end all parties on Friday?" I ask Trini.

"I have to go into work on Friday, then come home and feed my husband and daughter," Trini says, and calculates times in her head. "I'll get to your place at about half past 8, but I'll arrive dolled up and ready to go so you guys won't need to wait. Do you know what time everyone else is due to arrive?"

I shake my head. "I think Aisha was planning to arrive at lunchtime, but I don't know about Tanya and Kat – Aisha was organising things with them, so she'll know. We don't mind waiting though, you don't have to rush on our account."

"You can start drinking before she arrives," Jason teases, and I poke my tongue out at him.

"How are you going to amuse yourself while Trini's out in the city having fun?" I ask innocently, batting my eyelashes.

"Uh… Tommy was going to drive up, but I don't know whether he still is," Jason says, and I shrug my shoulders, not knowing what to say for a minute.

"Cool… If he does come over, just tell him… tell him I will call him. I know he'll be impatient and pacing the floor, but I need to sort out my life before I think about letting someone else in it." Jase nods, and I know he understands. "Night."

"Goodnight," Jason and Trini say in unison, and I slump upstairs to the guest bedroom. As I get into bed, I think sleep will be hard to come by – after all, I have a lot to think about. However, I fall asleep almost immediately, and although I don't remember the particulars of my dream, I know it involves Tommy, and I wake up with a smile on my face.

I guess I know what to do now…

Tommy

The few days after seeing Kim are the longest of my life.

Every class I teach feels like an ordeal where it used to be enjoyable. Training the rest of the rangers, and going through the latest battle plan is a chore, and the adrenalin just isn't flowing. I want this part of my life to be over, one way or the other, so that at least I'll know whether I'll be spending the rest of my life with the woman I love or not.

My mind isn't on defeating Mesogog, and I know that it should be. How are we meant to defeat him if the leader of the rangers is thinking about whether his girlfriend will ever forgive him? However, on Thursday afternoon, my mind is drawn away from the troubles of romance when Hayley announces that she's made a discovery.

The six of us are sitting in various places around the basement. I've just finished going through the plan for the fourth time, and I think it's finally beginning to dawn on the rest of the team exactly what I'm asking them to do.

"You want us to escalate the next battle?" Ethan asks worriedly. "But what if we can't defeat them? We'll get fried by Mesogog, and the world will be doomed!"

The four of them look at Hayley and I, suddenly troubled by the possibility that we have gone insane and are playing Russian roulette with their lives. "The power source is a Dino Gem," Hayley suddenly blurts out, and the five of us look at her in complete and utter shock. She must have known about this since the previous night, but hadn't said anything to me. This must show on my face, as she adds apologetically, "Sorry, Tommy. I took some of the data to look over last night at my place, and finally worked out the characteristics. I didn't want to call and tell you, it was pretty late, and you had to teach today, you shouldn't have been distracted."

"How do you mean, it's a Dino Gem? I thought Trent's was the last one to retrieve?" Kira asks, and the other three nod emphatically.

"We never knew how many there were," I explain, shell-shocked at the latest development. "That's why it caught us by surprise that a white Ranger suddenly turned up out of the blue."

"So, theoretically, there could be thousands?" Conner asks, sitting forward on his chair.

"I guess, but all other Ranger teams have had manageable numbers – as far as I can remember, the largest number was six. It's possible that there are even more gems, but unlikely."

"Could we capture it and find another ranger?" Kira asks.

I think for a minute. It's possible, but… "It could be done, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's in their possession, and instead of using the power to create a ranger, as they did with Trent, they're harnessing the power directly and channelling it themselves. We'd have a fight on our hands to get the gem out of their possession, and to be frank, I don't think it's a fight we could win."

"Even if you did get the gem, it'd be useless until you could find the person it's meant to connect with, and that would take time we don't have," Hayley points out. "If you managed to get the gem, Mesogog and Elsa would be so annoyed, their anger would act as fuel to the fire, and put us under pressure while searching for the compatible person."

"Maybe it would be you, Hayley?" Conner suggests, but she shakes her head.

"I doubt it very much. Anyway, I agree with Tommy; it's too risky to even contemplate capturing the gem while Mesogog is still harnessing its power."

"Couldn't we try to capture it while we're in battle, kind of like how we managed to

rescue the kids that Elsa was holding hostage? Create some kind of distraction, which would allow one of us to sneak through and grab the gem? Even if we don't find the pre-destined owner, at least we would have it, and maybe we could try to use its power the same way that Mesogog did," Kira suggests. It's possible, but I have an overwhelming feeling that the final battle is coming near, and not before time. I don't want to prolong this war against Mesogog and Elsa, and although I'm aware of the risk we're running by escalating a battle while they have enhanced powers, I have every faith that somehow, we can defeat the bad guys, and get back to leading semi-normal lives.

"Again, it's possible, but I think Mesogog and Elsa will be aware that we've realised they have the gem," I point out. "They kept the box near them pretty much all of the time, and when they weren't near hundreds of Tyrannodrones guarded it. We'd have a tough job trying to infiltrate them, get the gem, and get out alive."

"So what do we do?" Trent asks.

"I guess the plan will remain the same," I say slowly, still trying to think things through in my head. I've never contemplated having to destroy a gem before, and although there's a case for trying to get it out intact and find its owner, the safest way to deal with it would be to destroy it. Before Mesogog had enhanced powers the five of us had come pretty close to finishing him and his acolytes off. Once the powers were taken away, they'd be pissed off, but we should be able to finish what we started. "I'll have to do more research on how to destroy a gem, I'm not sure if blowing it up will do enough to destroy it completely, but if we meet again tomorrow I should know more. Stay behind after class and I'll fill you in, just in case we get hit after school lets out and things get hectic."

"Dr O, we're not going to be in … we're not going to die, are we?" Conner asks, and I notice that the four teenagers in the room have all gone white at the thought of a final fight. I came to terms with it long ago; I knew that eventually this part of my life would have to end, if only for the sake of my sanity, and I've faced dire situations like this many times before. For the rest of my team, it's the first time, and I can understand why they're scared.

"You all know that there's a certain amount of danger in this," I start, and think carefully about what to say. "But you guys have improved so much since you were first chosen. You're more confident, and your skills have improved by a thousand times. I have every faith that we can do this. I know what I've said we should do sounds dangerous, and I won't lie to you – it will be the toughest thing we've ever had to do as a team. But I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think we had no other choice. Capturing the gem would be almost impossible, and carrying on fighting Mesogog and Elsa with advanced power is only going to drain our power and eventually let them win. We could carry on fighting just to stay in the same place, or we can finish this and you guys can get back to being normal teenagers again." I pause, and look at them again. "I have confidence in our abilities, and I would never doubt that. But I don't want to force any of you into doing something you don't want to do. If you have any doubts, say so, and we can work out a new plan."

They all shake their heads, and Ethan says quietly, "We'll do it," looking for confirmation from the other three, who all nod. "Destroy a Dino Gem, a dinosaur, and a weird chick who makes sarcastic comments all the time. All in a day's work."

The four of them leave soon afterwards, hopefully reassured by my pep talk, although they've been unusually quiet since we agreed on the plan. Hayley remains at the computer, having agreed to stay on a little longer to work with me on how to destroy the gem.

"Destroying a power source the same as ours is going to be weird," I muse, twisting the bracelet that holds my black gem round and round my wrist. "Kira was right when she said we should try and get the sixth back on our side."

"I thought you believed it would be too risky?" Hayley asks, not turning round from the computer.

"It is; it would be almost impossible to do, but if we had another source of power…"

"For what it's worth, I think you've made the right decision by deciding to end things now," Hayley suddenly says, and turns from the computer to face me. Her expression is determined, and goes some way towards persuading me I'm doing the right thing. "The others need a chance to live their own lives – they've done a fantastic job, I'm not disputing that, but they're only teenagers. And you need a chance to live your life without this added pressure. I know you don't regret being called back up, but you've got other things in your life to worry about, and if it goes on much longer, all five of you are going to be torn between two worlds, and that's a decision you shouldn't have to make."

I wonder just how much she knows about the emotional turmoil I've been going through in the past few weeks. "And how about you, how will the end affect you?" Hayley grins.

"As long as all of you continue to come to the Cyberspace and keep me company, it won't be too much of a strain. It's been an honour to be involved in saving the world, but the same applies to me – it's time to move on."

"I guess," I say, and start tapping my gem, trying to determine its properties. "Do you think if we give everything we've got, the gem Mesogog has could be destroyed in an explosion?"

Hayley turns back to the computer, but shakes her head as she does so. "It's a possibility, but you'd be leaving yourself exposed if the explosion doesn't take out Mesogog and Elsa. They'd still have the power they started off with, and the five of you would have nothing left. Can you take your gem out of the bracelet, or is it too tightly enclosed in the band?"

I tap it against the surface of the desk, but nothing happens. "Nope, we welded it in pretty well. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking you guys are going to have to get the box using the Zords, get the gem out and shatter it. Despite how much power the gems hold, they're surprisingly not that strong in themselves, which we realised. Mesogog probably knows this as well, which is why he's keeping it in a box."

"In case it gets damaged in battle," I agree. "There's no way to get it easily, is there?" I say, but it's a rhetorical question. We're in a Catch 22 situation – the discovery of the new gem has led to that, and there's going to be no alternative except to fight until one side comes out victorious and the other is ultimately defeated. I have faith, but do I have enough?

"Are you going to be keeping your mind on the job?" Hayley asks quietly, and I turn back to find her looking at me instead of the computer again. I know what she's referring to, and am glad she's been so diplomatic about the situation. There's no love lost between her and Kim, and Hayley could easily have made jibes about Kim's reaction to finding out I was a Ranger again. Instead, she's been quietly supportive, and I'm grateful to her for it.

"I've got nothing else to think about," I say quietly. Jason had called me after work on Wednesday to pass on the news that Kim had calmed down. Trini had said wise words to her, Kim had seemed reassured, but she still hadn't called me. Jase had reaffirmed the fact that Kim had promised she would call me, but had also added that Trini had suggested Kim switch careers, and she had a lot more to think about. I understand all this, but it still makes it hard when another day goes by and I still haven't heard from her. I've found myself throwing everything back into the task of saving the world, just like I did when she left me the first time. I can only hope the second time isn't permanent.

"I'm sure she'll call," Hayley says comfortingly, and then smiles. "Until then, I have your undivided attention, so let's see what we can plan in advance for when the bad guys attack again. If we can get as much outlined as possible beforehand, there's a stronger chance you can get the gem and shock them into making mistakes."

I pull up a chair, finally stopping my circuit of the room, and begin thinking deeply. Why is it that I always get stuck with the decisions which quite literally mean the difference between life and death? Luckily, the decision can be put off a while longer, as my cell phone rings in my pocket. For a glorious moment I think it's Kim calling, but the display is saying it's Rocky. "Hello?"

"Dude, I need some advice. What do you do when your girlfriend starts to say things aren't moving fast enough in your relationship?" Rocky is speaking at a million miles an hour, and it's hard to understand him.

"Talk to her about it?" I hazard a guess, but it's obviously the wrong answer.

"I can't talk to her! I've spent the past two weeks avoiding her!"

"Rocko, it's Aisha. You love her. Why are you so afraid of showing it? Make the grand gesture, ask her to move in, you already practically live in each others pockets anyway." I'm uncomfortably aware that I should be taking my own advice as I say the words, but then again – Kim wanted to be left in peace to think things through, so that's what I'm doing, even though it's killing me.

"I guess…" he says, then suddenly blurts out, "That's it! Tommy, you're a genius!"

Hardly. If I were a genius, surely things in my life would be a lot easier to deal with? "So you'll talk to her?"

"I'll ask her to stop by my place after this girls weekend the five of them are having," Rocky decides. "How are you holding up, anyway? Aisha said something about you and Kim being back together but not really?"

"Yeah, and to make matters worse we've decided to finish things with Mesogog once and for all." As soon as I say the words, I regret it. I didn't want to tell anyone else about it – there's no need for them to worry. I hope. "Don't tell anyone else," I warn. "Not even Aisha. No one else knows, and I want it kept that way."

"But why?" Rocky asks confusedly.

"They've got another Dino Gem, and are using it against us as an extra power source without channelling it through a ranger like they did before. The only way to beat them is to destroy them," I tell him.

"Why do you want it kept a secret? Haven't there been enough secrets between the group lately?" he points out. It's a good point, but I've thought this through and won't change my mind. I may be making the same mistake twice, but I don't think I could handle everyone's eyes on me as we go into battle for what looks to be the final time. I'm certain we're doing the right thing, and I don't want anyone saying I'm going wrong. I trust their opinions, that isn't the issue, but at the end of the day, I'm the one who's been fighting this battle, not them, and I know our opponents better.

"I know, I know. But… this is my battle, and I need to do it without any added pressure." A wave of indecision comes over me, and I add hastily, "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

"As to not telling the rest of them, yes, probably. But you need to call Kim before the battle starts. Don't tell her what might happen, just say something like you wanted to keep her informed. I know you'll win, that's not the issue. You just need to call her to let her know you're thinking of her."

Since when was Rocky romantic? Actually, I don't want to know. And he's made a good point – Kim would never forgive me if something went wrong and I hadn't called her. "Good point. Thanks."

"No problem, Tommy," Rocky says seriously. "I've got to go, but I'll be thinking of you. Let me know when it's all over, and if you need me in the meantime, for anything, you only have to call me."

The gesture's appreciated more than I can say. "Thanks. I'll be in touch. Good luck with patching things up with Aisha."

I hang up, and have to drag my thoughts away from the call, back to saving the world. Rocky's faith means a lot, and he made an excellent point in that I should call Kim before going into battle for the last time. But before that, the battle has to be planned, to make sure everything will go smoothly.

And it will.

Kim

When I went back to work on Wednesday, I handed in my notice. I didn't mention the little matter of the job driving me insane; but cited a change in personal circumstances and a wish to re-evaluate my career as the reasons for leaving. Luckily, I must have looked particularly despondent that morning, so my boss said I didn't have to work out my period of notice, but would still receive my salary for that period.

Either they took pity on me, or I was bad at my job and they wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. Whichever, I was out of there, and not a moment too soon. I said my goodbyes as quickly as possible, and returned home, stopping by the store to get the free recruitment newspapers as well as a few local papers which had careers sections.

All of Wednesday was spent on the Internet researching possibilities. Trini had hit a nerve when she suggested switching careers, and I had decided to take her at her word. Although I had loved working in advertising for the past few years, it was time for a change. I meant it when I said I wanted to stay in California, but I needed to find a new career. However, nothing I found seemed to appeal to me.

It's now Friday morning, and I sit at my kitchen table, sipping my second cup of coffee and waiting for Aisha to arrive. I called her on Wednesday morning to let her know about what had happened, and she had apologised non-stop until I forced her to calm down, and reiterated what I have come to believe over the past couple days – what happened was no-one's fault, and we just have to put it down to miscommunication, and move on. If nothing else, this whole episode will force the group of us to keep in contact more often. She sounded relieved, and then told me she'd arrive at my place after eleven. Tanya and Kat would get to Surfside by half past seven, and we'd wait for Trini before hitting the bars.

I leaf through another careers magazine, wondering why nothing appeals to me. I have money saved up from gymnastics prize money, but I always thought that would be used for something worthwhile, rather than tiding me over until I found another job. I know that I don't have as much ambition as I once had, but I didn't expect nothing to appeal to me. I could always work as a temp for a while until I figure out a career, but the idea of taking notes and filing five days a week reminds me too much of my last job to sound like a viable possibility.

Thankfully, the buzzer rings, and I get up to pick up the entry phone. "Hello?"

"Let me up!" Aisha says excitedly, and I laugh, pushing the button which opens the door downstairs. It's a matter of minutes before she bangs loudly on the front door, and I open it, giggling as she gives me a huge hug, as well as a bunch of flowers which avoid getting crushed in the mayhem.

"These are beautiful, but why did you bring them?" I ask Aisha, as she flops down on the couch and I go into the kitchen to search for a vase. The roses are gorgeous, in deep shades of pink and yellow, and I smile at the choice of colour.

"One, because I wanted to say sorry again for being a thoughtless friend and never asking if you knew about our old fearless leader being a leader once more but to different people, and two, because they're incredibly appropriate colours for our girls' night!"

"You don't need to keep saying sorry, you know that. But thank you for them, they're gorgeous," I say, cutting the stems and bringing the vase back into the room, where it takes pride of place on the coffee table. I sit next to Aisha. "How are things with you?"

"The boy has gone from skittish to bouncy, and I have no idea why," she says, and sits back up. "All last week he kept on sidling from room to room, never staying in one place for more than five seconds, but in a depressed sort of way. Now, he's running from room to room as though he's in training for the marathon, and whenever I ask him what's brought on the sudden change in temperament, he kisses my cheek and says I'll find out soon enough."

"It sounds as though Rocky's developing split personalities," I say. "How did he feel when you told him you were coming for the weekend?"

"Oh, I have no idea what he actually felt deep inside," Aisha tells me. "At first, when he wasn't talking to me, he just mumbled something unintelligible and carried on eating. Then, when he began to form sentences, he said it was a good idea to see you again. Now he's hyperactive, he tells me it's the best idea the two of us ever had, and I should make sure to enjoy myself and bring back lots of anecdotes to tell him. Oh, and cookies."

"He hasn't mentioned moving in together again?" I ask.

"Nope, when he called me this morning he told me he'd like to see me Sunday evening when I get home. I told him I may still have a raging headache from our exploits, but he said that didn't matter."

"Surely the positive change in mood is a good thing? It must mean he's accepting what you said?"

"I have no idea anymore," Aisha admits. "But, in the meantime, I am here to have fun, and to take your mind off your incredibly despondent state by offering suggestions."

"How is that taking my mind off it?" I query, but Aisha just grins.

"It will take your mind off it once I've told you what I think, because my suggestions are fantastic, great, and most of all, perfect."

I groan, and it's my turn to slump into my sofa. "Go on then, hit me with them."

I've closed my eyes, but from Aisha's tone of voice I can tell that she's smiling. "Okay, first of all, I had an idea as to what job you could go for. Didn't you go through a phase in school of wanting to be a nurse?"

I sit up, and open my eyes. I'd completely forgotten about the three months in school where I began to pay attention to Biology classes and talked dreamily about attending the war-wounded and healing their wounds. As far as I can remember, Tommy wasn't too impressed with my idea of nursing sick soldiers, until Billy said if he was ever injured when rushing somewhere after running late, I could be on hand to fix his injuries. After that, he became a whole lot more supportive. "I'd completely forgotten about that."

"I thought you had; after that, you had the bright idea of becoming a landscape gardener," Aisha says. "You'd have to spend a while qualifying, but it'd be easy for you."

I think about it. I was always interested in first aid, and took a few courses in it through school. After being a ranger, I've got a strong stomach for injuries, blood and gore, so that wouldn't be a problem. The money I've saved could be put to good use by paying for training. Then, I have an idea which complements Aisha's perfectly. "Not a nurse… How do you think I would be as a paramedic?"

"We were practically paramedics when we were Rangers and had to deal with anyone who was injured in battle!" Aisha squeals. "Go for it, Kim. You know you want to."

"It's a good idea… I'd have to look into where I'd need to train, and make sure I had enough money, but it's the best idea yet!" We grin stupidly at each other, and I feel better for being in Aisha's company. The past week has had its bad times, but it's also served to bring friends together, which can only be a good thing. "And I guess the second idea is to do with relationship advice?"

"Yes. I think it would be a good idea if you called him tomorrow."

"What? Why? How do you even know I've come to a decision?"

Aisha looks at me as though I'm stupid. "Oh, come on Kim. As soon as you said to me it was no-one's fault that you missed finding out Tommy was a ranger again, it became screamingly obvious that you weren't too mad at him. Are you going to rekindle things? A yes or no will suffice."

Why does it feel as though I've spent the past two weeks constantly sighing? I sigh for what seems like the millionth time, and admit, "Yes. But why do I have to call him while you're still here? I thought this was meant to be a girls only weekend, no boys allowed."

"Two reasons. Rocky spoke to Tommy yesterday and said that it sounds as though he's going mad. I think it'd be best to put the boy out of his misery as soon as possible. And also, I'd like to be here when you call him. I'm not saying that anything will go wrong, but we've not been there for each other at important times for a while, and I'd like to be here to make up for that."

I give Aisha another huge hug. "I'll call him tomorrow," I promise. "In the meantime, how about we grab some lunch and hit the stores?"

"You've never had a better idea," Aisha declares, and jumps up from the sofa. I follow suit, and we leave my apartment joking and giggling. It was a good idea for Aisha to come to stay, for both our sakes. After all, what can heal us but friendship?

We end up staying out for hours, only returning when we realise it's past four in the afternoon, and we need to start getting ready soon in order to be able to leave my place as soon as Kat, Tanya and Trini get there. We didn't buy much, but it wasn't about the shopping – it was about the two of us catching up and enjoying being in each other's company for the first time in what seems like ages. By the time we get home, we've pledged to meet at least once a month and catch up with what's going on in each other's lives, and to persuade the others that meeting more regularly would be a good thing.

"I know they'll like the idea, but getting everyone together at the same time is always going to be a problem," I say as I open my front door and we go inside, Aisha leaving her shopping bag containing a new top for tonight by the door. "Do you want a drink?"

"I'll have a glass of water, thanks Kim," Aisha says, and wanders over to the window. As I go into the kitchen, she calls out, "Kim, your answer-machine's blinking at me."

I pour Aisha a glass of water and come back into the living room, and hand it to her before pressing the button. I don't expect to hear Tommy's voice, so it comes as a little bit of a shock.

"Hi, Kim. Um… look, I know you said not to call you, but I didn't want to be accused of not keeping you in the loop again, so I need to tell you we're going into battle again. And, um… it looks as though it's going to be a bad one." There's a short pause, and I can hear voices in the background faintly. "Anyway, sorry for calling. I'll pass on to Jason what happens, and I guess you could find out from him how things go. Or you could call me. Please call me? Bye."

Aisha and I make goggle eyes at each other as I try to take in what Tommy just said.

"It's going to be a bad one?" I say faintly, sitting back onto the couch where I seem to spend all my time these days, sighing. "Do you think I should go down there?" Aisha storms over to my phone, and picks it up. "Sha, what are you doing?"

She ignores me, and dials a number, waiting for a few seconds before saying, "Hi Jase, it's Aisha. Kim and I just got a cryptic message from Tommy, and we were wondering if you'd spoken to him today." She pauses, then nods. "Okay. I'm sure he'd have said something more if it were really serious. Thanks, Jase. How are you and the girls?"

She chats to Jason for a few minutes more, before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone. "Tommy called him as well, apparently he was meant to be going round to his place tonight and wanted him to know he may be a little late, so it looks as though he's learnt his lesson. Jason said that Tommy sounded fine, and you know how close the two of them are. If it were anything serious, I'm sure he'd have told Jason, even if he didn't want to worry you. Please, don't worry Kim. It was probably nerves at having to speak to you."

"Are you suggesting I'm scary?" I say jokingly, only partially reassured by Aisha's reasoning.

"No, just that you told me you were mad at him the last time you saw each other, and he's probably wary of saying the wrong thing. Kim, I'm sure it's nothing. Call him tomorrow like we originally planned, and forget about it tonight. This is a night to reassure me, remember? I don't want you stealing my thunder!" Aisha grins, and puts her arm around me. "Now, do I wear the top I just spent too much money on, or the one I originally bought?"

"The outrageously expensive one, definitely. What was the point in buying it if you'll never wear it?" I ask, and do my best to put Tommy's message out of my mind. Aisha's right – Jason would know if something was wrong. "Besides, this night is for you, remember? Wear what makes you feel good!"

"Is it too early to start getting ready?" Aisha asks, and I look at my watch. It's only half past four, but it's never too early to start getting ready when you're with your best friend, and can put loud music on, scream at each other, and feel twenty-one again.

"No, I'd say we're right on time!"

"Excellent. I want the shower!" Aisha yells, and makes off to the bathroom. I race her, but the head start she got was too much to catch, and I settle for trying to decide what I should wear, knowing that in an hour's time I still won't have decided. I find myself thinking about the message again, and am tempted to turn on the news just in case. But, I tell myself, I'm being stupid. I can put him out of my head for another night, and then call him in the morning to check if he's okay. I couldn't do anything if I was down there anyway, so I'd be hanging around feeling like a spare part and feeling stupid for driving all the way to Reefside when the fight turned out to be over in twenty minutes.

I fix my attention on my wardrobe. What to wear, what to wear…

In four hours time, the apartment is twice as full as previously. Kat and Tanya arrived with two bottles of wine, and the four of us are sprawled around my apartment waiting for Trini, who called an hour ago to say she was just leaving.

"I would like to lay down some ground rules for this evening," Aisha says loudly, banging her (thankfully plastic) wine glass down on the coffee table a little too forcefully. The wine Kat and Tanya brought is almost gone, and we're all feeling a lot happier than before.

"Shouldn't we wait for Trini?" Tanya asks confusedly.

"I will inform her of the rules when she arrives," Aisha says precisely, struggling to get her mouth around the words. "Okay. There will be no discussion of the men in our little clique. Trini and Tanya shall not be allowed to rhapsodise about the wonderfulness of Jason on Adam. Kim and Kat will not be able to debate who knows Tommy the best, and I must be stopped at all times from moaning about the uselessness of Rocky. Are we agreed?"

"Agreed," the three of us chorus, and Kat and I share a grin. We made our peace with each other long ago, and she cornered me earlier to congratulate me on getting back together with Tommy, to chastise me for not calling him earlier, and to apologise for not knowing I hadn't been told he was a ranger before. We've been friends for a long time, and there's never been any tension between us, thankfully. She's been dating a guy who lives in her building for a while now, but from what I've heard on the grapevine she's begun to develop feelings for Billy, so who knows what will happen there. Hopefully the gossip will trickle out during the course of the night.

"The second rule… we must appreciate all good-looking men we come across tonight. We should not make fools of ourselves in front of them, but should accept any free drinks, without being careless," Aisha says a little more seriously. "Oh, and no cheating on boyfriends."

"That won't be an issue," Kat says mournfully. "I broke up with Steve, remember?"

"Yes, but you're going to proclaim adoration to Billy next week, so there won't be a problem," Tanya says, and grins at Aisha and me.

"Are you? I say gleefully. Kat smiles, and is about to go into details, when Aisha yells,

"Addendum to rule number one – Kat is not allowed to discuss Billy until tomorrow morning when we are all hungover and need gossip with our coffee. Tonight is about the five of us. We don't need men!"

"Are there any more rules?" I ask wearily, and top up everyone's glass before wobbling my way to the kitchen to get the bottle Aisha brought with her. The buzzer rings while I'm in there, and I can hear Kat struggling to pick up the receiver to let Trini in.

"I don't think so. However, I reserve the right to make any more if the situation calls for it," Aisha decides, and Kat goes to the door to hold the door open for Trini, who arrives less than a minute later. She takes one look at the four of us, with reddened cheeks and happy expressions, and smiles.

"I can see I've got some catching up to do…"

There are hugs all round, and Aisha pours Trini a glass of wine. "We'll drink this and then hit the town," she says decisively. "Oh, and we decided there is to be no talk of men who are or used to be rangers. This is our night, and we're going to shine!"

"To us," Tanya says, and holds up our glass. "To the underappreciated female rangers everywhere!"

"To female rangers!" we yell in time with each other, and clink our glasses together. I wish Tanya hadn't mentioned rangers, but as we drink our wine, I stop thinking about it. Tommy will be fine, after all, he's the best ranger there's been, and if anyone can take on the bad guys in a dire situation, it's him.

I resolve to call him as soon as I wake up, and drink the rest of the wine with a smile on my face. Life seems so much easier when you make positive decisions…

Tommy

I come to, aware that I feel as though I've been hit by a bus. There seems to be a loud noise blaring at me from somewhere nearby, and I dreamily wonder if it's an alarm going off as a building bursts into flames. It stops after a minute or so, and I close my eyes again, hoping that sleep will come again and hopefully stop the pain.

The noise starts again fifteen minutes later, and I'm slightly more alert this time, realising that it's not an alarm, but my phone. I struggle to sit up, and find my phone a couple of feet away from me. I pull it towards me, stab hopefully at the buttons through half-closed eyes, and eventually say "Hello?" in a nastily croaky voice.

"Tommy?" Oh no. I recognise that voice, and she's obviously not happy at me again. "Are you okay?"

"I'm having trouble remembering my name at the moment, and I can't move more than a couple of feet without screaming in pain, but apart from that, I'm fine," I say, forgetting momentarily that I should be jumping for joy at the fact Kim has called me.

"Go back to sleep. I'll be with you in two hours." The line goes dead and I drop my phone, not sure whether I've just dreamed that conversation, or if it really did happen.

Everything hurts so much…


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Notes: Okay, this chapter is way later than I anticipated, and I'm sorry. I didn't have the best summer, and then uni work has been immense. Hopefully the chapter will be worth the wait 

Tommy

Once Kim hangs up I roll over so my face is smashed into what I take to be a pillow, and concentrate harder than I ever have before on piecing together the moments of the previous day.

There had been a fight, that was a given. There had been an altercation to the west of the city at around four o'clock, and we'd all rushed over there to deal with it, the battle plan emblazoned into our heads.

The fight lasted for hours, and hours, and I just remember aiming fire to that goddamned box thousands upon thousands of times in an attempt to get Mesogog and Elsa away from it, with no discernible effect. Was I thinking that this was the end? I guess so. And then…

Well, I'm still barely alive, so I guess it's not the end after all. I would remember if we'd got the gem.

Wouldn't I?

I suddenly realise that my pillow is moving, and thoughts flash through my mind of me not being in my house at all, and in fact being in some parallel dimension of Mesogog's making. I gingerly look around, well aware that the pounding in my head has not abated, only to find myself face to face with Conner's leg.

Even in an alternate dimension, he's here? Is there no way to get rid of him? Although it would be helpful to have the extra help… I'm hoping the memory-loss is to do with the after-effects of the fight, and not a sign of my aging disgracefully. Conner moves his leg away, and from what I can make out, sits up and groans louder than is strictly necessary. Apparently, he wasn't banking on waking up wherever we are either.

"Dr. O, get up! We saved the world yesterday, man! There's some celebrating to do!"

Parallel dimension or not, this new development certainly cheers me up…

Kim

I break all the speeding laws on the way down to Reefside, and still don't get there fast enough. I left my place at half past eight, and only felt a slight stab of guilt at leaving four good friends alone in my place with only empty wine bottles and a questionable loaf of bread for sustenance. I then drive for forty minutes before realising I have no idea where to go when I hit Reefside, and decide to ring Jason. He'll already be up seeing to Sally due to his wife currently being comatose at my place, and will be a handy direction giver. I switch my phone to speaker, and dial his number.

"Hello?"

"Hey Jase, how do I get to Tommy's place after I exit the freeway at Reefside?" I feel a momentary pang as I think of all the times I waited for him to call and give me directions, but now I know what he's gone through, and think of how exhausted he sounded this morning, and the answering machine message he left yesterday… I have to see him. I have to make sure that he's okay.

"Kim, it's nine-fifteen in the morning. The man is going to kill you for waking him up this early in the morning, even if he does love you."

"He's already awake, I called him. He sounded awful, I think something went wrong with the battle last night, so I'm on my way there, but I don't know how to get to his place," I say impatiently.

"Are you sure he wasn't just annoyed at you waking him up?" Jason asks teasingly.

"Jason, I will kill you…" I threaten menacingly. I love him as deeply as a brother, but the girls I left behind at my place aren't the only ones with hangovers, and if I hadn't woken up suddenly convinced that something was wrong, I'd have been fast asleep in my own bed at this very moment. Instead I'm breaking the speed limit hurtling down the freeway, and have no time for people questioning my judgement. I know I'm right, and I know I have to see him.

"Think, Kim. You don't think if something had gone wrong we'd have heard about it on the news? Aliens taking over the world, and all?"

I hate Jason when he's calm and rational and all I want to do is scream and stamp my foot and tell him I'm right. "Jason. I don't care. I'm halfway there by now – yes, I know I should be only quarter of the way there, but speed limits are only guidelines. Even if I am wrong, you're the one who told me not to leave him hanging, and here I am, driving down the freeway to tell him I love him. So would you please just give me the damn directions?"

Jason sighs, and I know he's too weary to argue any longer. When I start talking quickly, he normally loses the patience to try and keep up, and just hands the phone to Trini. "You'll need to head into Reefside, but before you get there there's a road to your left called Valencia Drive. It's a couple of miles down and to your left, you should see the Jeep parked outside, but the number's 1220. Call me if you get lost, and I'll try to help you if you can see any landmarks. Just don't talk as quickly to him as you did to me before ten a.m., or he won't understand you."

"Thanks Jase. I'll call you when I'm there. I left Trini and the girls at my apartment, and don't expect her back till late afternoon – it was a long night."

"Have you been leading my wife into disrepute?" Jason asks, and I get the feeling he's only half joking. I smile as I overtake a huge truck.

"Well, we hit at least six wine bars, Kat got a cute guy's number even though she wants to declare undying love for Billy in the near future, and we didn't get to bed till four this morning." It was a fantastic time, but I can't bring back the memories of what fun we had. My mind keeps playing back to me sitting bolt upright at ten past eight, wide awake and convinced that something was wrong. I had to call Tommy, to check if he was okay, and even though he may have been half asleep, he sounded as though he'd been left for dead. I have to find out what went down.

My mind is brought back to the question by yet another groan on the other end of the phone line. "Trini's a responsible woman! She has a child and a husband!"

"Yes, and she didn't drink as much as the rest of us," I reassure Jason. "And the rest of us weren't wasted! We hadn't seen each other in a really long time, and were all kind of hyperactive. She didn't embarrass herself, or you for that matter if that's what you're worried about. Now let me get off the phone so I can concentrate on driving and not pacifying you, even though Trini's a grown woman and can do what she pleases. Stop overreacting."

"Oh, and I guess you're not overreacting at all?" Jason smirks, and it sounds as though he's cheering up slightly.

"Probably. I always overreact, that's why you love me," I point out, and he snorts on the other end of the phone. "Anyway, I'll call if I get lost. Thanks for the directions."

"You're welcome. And good luck. Nothing will be wrong, but good luck anyway."

I hang up the phone and throw it back onto the passenger seat, trying to work out how long it will take me to get to Reefside and find Tommy's place. It shouldn't take too long from the sound of Jason's directions, but it wouldn't surprise me if he forgot to warn me about an intersection where I have to turn left, or something like that. All being well, I work out I should have another hour on the road, maybe less if my luck continues and I carry on cruising 20k over the speed limit.

Five minutes go by, where I begin thinking of what I'm going to say to Tommy when I eventually get to Reefside, and the panic sets in. He's probably going to think I'm a complete nut job for driving miles and miles on a Saturday morning, just because I had a feeling something was wrong when he didn't sound particularly chirpy at 8am. But no-one else seemed to understand the panic I felt when he sounded so wary of fighting yesterday…

I drive on, torn between the nagging fear that I'm completely overreacting and the constant belief that the only thing I can do is go to him and make sure he's okay.

Tommy

"Saved the world?" I ask, fully aware that this somewhat obvious question is not going to do much to demonstrate my questionable brainpower to my students, but not really caring. Attempting to sit up has done nothing for my equilibrium, so I sink into a somewhat more comfortable position of leaning on my elbows, with my head simultaneously buried into my chest. Conner seems to be everywhere at the same time; checking me to make sure I'm still alive or haven't fallen back asleep, then bouncing to the other end of the room to do god knows what. I wish he'd settle down for two seconds and just tell me what happened, because I really can't remember…

"Guys, you're awake!" Kira says, and I manage to raise my head back to a normal level, grateful for the less harsh tones of our only female ranger. Kira looks as tired as I feel, but has a radiant smile from ear to ear, and has brought Ethan, Trent and Hayley downstairs with her. "You guys completely passed out as soon as we got here last night. We didn't even get to have a party – I had to listen to Trent and Ethan talk for hours about the merits of handcrafted art versus virtual multimedia." She pulls a face, and sits down. "Believe me, I'd much rather have had the party."

"Guys… before things go any further, can you humour your poor teacher and remind him again exactly what happened during the fight yesterday?" I plead, not even attempting to make excuses. My head hurts, all my muscles feel as though they've been put through a mangle, and if I'm understanding my students correctly, they seem to be telling me that we managed to stop Mesogog completely last night.

The four younger rangers all look at me as though I have premature onset dementia, but Hayley seems more inclined to explain to me, although she can't resist a jibe at my expense.

"I never thought you'd forget a whole fight, Tommy. I mean, I knew your memory was bad, but this bad?"

"I remember up until about two hours into the battle," I say slowly, as more pieces of my memory come flooding back. "There was a disagreement…"

"I'll say!" Ethan interjects, a worried look on his face. "I'd never seen you guys fight so badly!"

"I was listening in on the communications link, and heard it all," Hayley continues, after shooting a warning look at Ethan. "Kira volunteered to run out of her Zord and grab the box with the gem inside, if someone would provide another distraction to let her get past the guard. They were shielding the box pretty well, using a wall of Tyrannodrones to prevent us getting a clear hit – hitting them would have lessened the impact on the gem, and there were no guarantees a clear hit would even do it. Conner took exception to this, and said if anyone should go, it should be him as the Red Ranger, and the latest in a long line of, if I can remember correctly, 'extremely cool leaders who never let anything faze them'." I quickly look at Conner, and notice with amusement his face has gone as red as his uniform, and he seems to have developed an intense fascination with the wall. "Anyway, you stopped them, Tommy, and said that you weren't putting their lives at risk, and that you would go."

"You guys just wouldn't come to an agreement," Trent observes, shaking his head. "Of course, it didn't actually help that we had to fight at the same time. If you hadn't been arguing, we could have finished them off a whole lot sooner."

"Did… did we both go?" I ask, images filling my mind all of a sudden.

"Well, it would have been pretty stupid if you hadn't used your invisibility," Conner said sheepishly. "So I ran out of the Megazord and pretended to surrender. I got them to face the other way, while you grabbed the box as their backs were turned, quite literally."

"Who'd have thought that some of the most vicious enemies in the universe could have been defeated by such simple trickery?" Kira observed dreamily. "Dr. O ran back to the Megazord, and they were none the wiser."

"Conner had to keep them talking for ages while we tried to shatter the gem," Ethan continued, and as he says it I vaguely remember jumping up and down on the seemingly-fragile shard of gem, so frustrated that nothing would shatter it. "I think he had to create some wild surrendering document or treaty on the spot just so he could keep them talking."

"Did I come back here at one point?" I ask, as a memory of being back at the Command Centre flits into view.

"You came back to see if I could help," Hayley reminds me. "We tried everything, pliers, hitting with a wrench, and none of it worked… then Trent had an idea."

"I knew you hadn't advocated using the gem," Trent says hesitantly, "but I thought that placing them together might let us harness the power without needing a sixth ranger. Of course, the theory was based on there only being six gems in the first place, so it was a long shot, but…"

"It worked," I say quietly, as my defective memory finally cranks into gear, and the events become a whole lot clearer.

I raced back to the battlesite, remembering as I left my place to re-engage invisibility, and jumped back into the Megazord.

"Is Conner coming back?"

"We told him to make up some story about needing to check the terms of surrender with us," Ethan informed me, "but made sure he knew to come back on his own. I think he said any presence of theirs might rub our faces in the fact that we lost, or something equally Conner-like."

The battle had abated while I'd been away, as Mesogog had evidently bought Conner's surrender story, but Ethan, Trent and Kira's body language suggested a deep tiredness.

"If this works, guys, it will all be over," I reassured them. I didn't say it would work, because I didn't know. But it had to work, because we were right out of options, and from the sounds of it, about to sign a surrendering treaty. If this didn't work, there would be no more world as we knew it.

Not that there was any pressure, or anything…

Trent nodded tiredly, and Kira and Ethan followed suit. A few seconds later, Conner re-appeared in the Megazord, and stormed over to us. "Can we do this quickly, so I don't have to listen to any more of their insufferable gloating? If I hear Elsa saying 'I'm surprised it took you Earthlings so long to recognise your true leaders' one more time, I'm going to shatter her with a wrench instead of the gem."

"Do we need to take them out of their holders?" Ethan asks quietly. Won't we have to demorph for that?"

"Try just placing our bracelets together," Kira suggested.

"We should get out of the Zords for this," I said tersely, not quite able to contemplate that this would be the end, no matter the outcome. And right then, the outcome was looking a lot more like fail than pass. "If it doesn't work, any explosion would destroy the Zords, and leave us even less power than we already have."

"The evil smelly-breathed ones are waiting for me to bring you guys over, anyway," Conner said awkwardly. "We could make as if to head over there, and then place the gems together. If it doesn't work…"

"We run," Kira and Trent said together.

It was a foolhardy plan, but I couldn't come up with anything better. I couldn't even provide a pep talk, or tell the four of them just how well they'd done as Rangers. All I could do was gesture silently towards the door that would lead us to our fate…

…and then my memory goes blank again. "What happened after we left the Zords?"

Kira's eyes are shining with the memory. "I don't think even Trent thought the plan was going to work, but seeing as Conner had managed to agree signing the universe away," she glared at Conner, who went bright red again and looked as though he was about to protest the slander of his name. "We really had no other choice. We got out, and stood in front of the Zords in a kind of circle, then put our arms into the middle so the bracelets were touching."

The poignancy of this being so like the team celebrations I performed years ago is not lost on me.

"The power of them all kind of, I don't know, congealed into one massive beam," Conner says quietly, moving away from his previous station against the wall to come closer to the five of us. "It took a bit, no, a lot of controlling.."

"Says the guy who got knocked flat on his face when it first happened," Ethan snickers, and Conner glowers at him.

"As I was saying. Once it formed the beam, obviously Mesogog and Elsa knew they'd been tricked by us, but they weren't letting go without a fight. They tried to attack us using the Tyrannodrones while we were still trying to control the beam, but eventually, we did it!"

"We managed to walk the way back here, but I guess you and Conner must have given more power or something, because you guys just collapsed right on the floor and we couldn't wake you up. We were really worried until Hayley said you were just exhausted and must be sleeping," Trent informs me.

"I checked the radar and all our data early this morning, once I'd navigated past you two sleeping beauties," Hayley adds, "and it looks as though you really did get them. There's no sign of their presence – Ethan wasn't sure, because there was no evidence of remains, but I'm almost completely sure you fried them with the last use of your beam."

"Yeah, and even if they aren't dead, they're gone," Kira chimes in. "Now they know we an use the gem's power without a Ranger to correspond with it, I don't think anyone would dare take us on."

"Hang on – are you sure the power isn't drained?" I ask suddenly, bewildered by this time of events. "I figured using them together that way would drain all the power we have."

Everyone turns to Hayley, who shakes her head. "I ran a few quick tests last night. I'd need to do more detailed tests on the gems to ascertain, but it looks as though you guys have enough juice left to fight still, although they're nowhere near full power."

"Do they recharge?" Trent asks, and Hayley shrugs.

"I think that's something we'll have to wait to find out about. I really don't know, but with this escapade, anything's possible."

"Would you guys be willing to fight again, hypothetically?" I ask curiously. "I wouldn't blame you at all if you wanted to walk away, you know. The whole reason we decided upon escalation was because everyone was getting kind of sick of the whole thing."

"As long as it isn't an immediate possibility, I don't see why not," Kira says. "I mean… it's kind of what we are now, isn't it?"

"The use of our powers in that way will have scared everyone else off who was looking to attempt an invasion," Ethan adds. "But if anything happens again in the future and we're called upon there's no way I wouldn't do something to help."

Trent and Conner both nod, and I would feel proud, happy, elated… instead I just feel incredibly tired. I don't know if Trent's theory of Conner and I using more power than the others to form the beam is true, but from looking at Conner, I'd say we're both pretty exhausted. "Even though we're not, you know, needed, I'd appreciate a meeting after school on Monday," I propose, knowing I'm in no fit state to deal with anything regarding the future now, when my head feels like concrete and all I want to do is sleep. "Same time as training was, just to discuss the options available and see if Hayley has any more definite results over the power left in our gems."

Everyone nods, and looks awkward. "It's going to feel weird going back to normal life now," Conner says haltingly, and Kira, Ethan and Trent nod emphatically. "For what seems like forever, we've been putting practically everything else on hold to save the world, and now… it's over."

"Try to have what passes for a 'normal' weekend," Hayley says comfortingly. "We can have a more articulate discussion on Monday."

The other four nod, and eventually traipse out of the room and upstairs. "How did they explain being here last night to their parents?" I ask Hayley, the thought only just having occurred to me.

"A sleepover at Trent's house was put forward as the best explanation. Trent's father was out of town," Hayley explains, then looks sheepish. "I should really go over to the Cyberspace… are you sure you're going to be okay on your own?"

"If I was capable of thought, that would be a more appropriate question," I say ruefully. "I'm going to crash on the couch for a little while and put off making sense of the whole thing til the afternoon."

"I'll call you later, then," Hayley says, and is about to depart before a thought suddenly takes her and she turns back to face me. "By the way, did you answer the phone earlier? I heard it ring, but the machine never picked up."

Kim's phone call hits me, and I automatically look at my watch. Nine thirty… how fast is she driving? "It was Kim," I admit somewhat reluctantly to someone I know has held a candle for me for some years. "I don't know how, but she knew something was wrong – she said she was coming straight down here, but I don't know whether she is or not."

Hayley's eyes betray nothing of what she is thinking, but she smiles anyway, and says "That's good. At least you won't be on your own when the shock finally hits."

"Trust me, I remember the 'suddenly-a-civilian- shock incredibly well," I remind her. "Have a good day at work." I walk with her up the stairs, and to the door. "It's going to be bizarre for you as well, you realise."

"I'm going to be dragging the five of you into the Cyberspace far too often to ever miss you," she says, with a grin on her face. "I'll talk to you later." Hayley opens and shuts the door, and then is gone, leaving me to trudge the last few steps to my couch, and collapse there for a while.

Just shutting my eyes for a couple of minutes, and then I'll get up…

Kim

Trust me, I will never bemoan having persuasive powers ever again. After being pulled over for speeding twenty minutes outside of Reefside, I managed to convince the cop who threatened me with a ticket that it was my first speeding offence (it so isn't) and that I would pay more attention to the road in future.

I will, I really will, as long as I get there quicker…

After a slightly hairy moment pulling off the freeway, I find myself heading straight down Valencia Drive, and peering like a short-sighted badger at all the house numbers, trying to find Tommy's house. I finally get there, and screech the tyres so fast in pulling in that I think I woke the entire neighbourhood up. If anyone's still asleep at ten-thirty on a Saturday morning, that is.

I jump out of the car without bothering to lock the door – it looks like a great neighbourhood, and I don't think my car's in any danger. I run up the drive, and knock on the door, at first lightly and then frantically.

Where the hell is he?

I consider panicking, and then realise I'm already there. The most obvious solution in the world escapes me for a few moments, during which time I hyperventilate, consider the possibility of him actually having been kidnapped by aliens and me dying an old maid. Then I realise the door could be open, turn the handle, and am confronted with the sight of a snoring Tommy sprawled out on his couch – sprouting a grazed cheek and torn T-shirt, but very much alive.

I don't know whether to let him sleep or wake him up so I can hit him. The latter is pretty much denied me however, as he's apparently so soundly asleep not even elephants could wake him up, or my phone ringing, which is what happens as I decide to find the kitchen to make myself a sorely needed cup of coffee.

"Hello?" I whisper, thinking it won't wake Tommy but hoping it will.

"Hello, to the worst hostess in the world," Aisha says teasingly.

"Hey, the party last night wasn't so bad!" I protest.

"Well, the breakfast in bed was non-existent, and the note saying 'Gone to Reefside, bread in the cupboard' really didn't make up for it, I'm afraid," Aisha says sarcastically. "So, you there yet? Has the world ended, or were you overreacting?"

"I had to let myself in, he's sound asleep. He looks pretty beat up, but I'm pretty sure the world hasn't ended because you're still harassing me," I complain. "I'm sorry I skipped out on you guys, but you can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same if it had been Rocky."

"True enough," Aisha admits. "He called a couple of minutes ago, which is why I woke up. He wants to take me to dinner Monday night, which is definitely a step in the right direction. Are you coming back tonight for crisis talks and fashion advice?"

"Of course I am. If I'm worried about the state of the sleeping boy, I'll just pile him in the backseat and bring him back with me," I say. "Is anyone else awake yet?"

"No, everyone's in various states of disarray on your living room floor. Tanya needs to leave by noon though, so I'll have to wake her up pretty soon. How long will you be?"

I sigh, and lean against the kitchen table, giving up my search for coffee. "I really have no idea. Now the panic has subsided, I have no idea what to say to him."

"Don't be an idiot, just tell him you love him! Kim, you drove all the way down there, at least say something meaningful. I expect nothing less, and if you tell me anything different when you get back here I will send you right back to Reefside to get it right a second time."

"This is a second chance, remember?" I say ruefully, remembering our ill-fated relationship over ten years ago.

"Second chances are given for a reason, Kim. Now go for it!"

Empowered by my friend's words, I feel much better. "Okay. But when Trini wakes up, tell her she has to maintain in front of Jason that she wasn't wasted last night – I had to do damage control when I called him asking for directions earlier."

"She's going to have to get over a certain hangover first," Aisha says cynically, "but I'll pass it on. See you later, preferably with man in tow."

"Yes, boss," I say sarcastically, and hang up the phone, only to be frightened out of my skin when I look up to see a very confused-seeming Tommy standing in the doorframe, rubbing his eyes and looking like he's seeing a ghost.

"Kim?" he says croakily, and I can't help it, I rush towards him and give him the biggest hug ever. I hold him to me so closely that if he didn't have any cracked ribs from the fight before, he's sure as hell got them now.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks sleepily into my hair, not letting go of me for which I am greatly pleased.

"I knew your memory wasn't any better than in high school," I tease, not moving either. "I called you earlier, remember? You sounded as though you'd been hit by a truck, and I was worried, so I drove down here."

"What time is it?" he says, yawning loudly and letting go so he can look at his watch. "Is it ten-thirty in the morning?"

I roll my eyes. "Tell me where your coffee is, and go and sit down and try and wake up. I don't care if you just saved the world, but you sure aren't making sense."

"Top cupboard beside the fridge," Tommy says, and then kisses me on top of my head. "I'm so glad you came… apparently we saved the world last night, although I don't remember any of it."

"Try and remember it, while I make you coffee," I say, fighting hard to keep off the grin, caused by a delightfully sleepy Tommy, and the fact that he kissed me. He sighs, and shuffles back into the next room, and I finally locate and make coffee.

I bring two mugs of hot coffee into the sitting room, and sit down next to Tommy, who thankfully looks more awake and hopefully more coherent. He takes one of the mugs from me, and drinks gratefully.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," I say, and then continue carefully. "Do you remember anymore of what happened?"

"I got filled in this morning, don't worry," he says, and puts the coffee down on the table next to the couch where he proceeds to tell me what his team told him earlier this morning. I listen carefully, at turn enthralled, shocked, and downright horrified at how close they came to apparently surrendering the security of the world.

"What the hell were you guys thinking?" I ask incredulously when Tommy mentions the 'surrender treaty'.

"I have absolutely no idea, although believe me, if you ever meet Conner, you'll appreciate how it's an idea only he can come up with," Tommy says, and tentatively pulls me closer to him. I guess he hasn't realised that I drove all the way down here to tell him I love him… or maybe he's realised, but doesn't want to assume. I keep quiet for now, and let him carry on. "It felt so much like the end… whether the end of good, or the end of bad, I don't know. It felt more surreal than any other battle ever did. I still can't believe it's over."

"How do you know it's over?" I ask curiously.

"We formed the power of our gems, along with the unclaimed gem, into a huge beam of energy by placing them together. At the time, I think Hayley was unsure as to whether we managed to catch them in it or if they teleported away, but there's absolutely no sign of them in any of our scans. The gems are seriously depleted in power, so I guess we're finished either way. There's enough power to fight a couple times, but no more than that."

"How do you feel about that?" I ask curiously, really not knowing how he'd feel about that. Until a week ago, I didn't even know he was a Ranger again, and now I have to ask how he feels about this being over? Time definitely moves fast.

"I don't know," he sighs, and lies his head back against the cushion of the couch. "I'm glad, I'm worried, I'm sad… You know the drill, Kim. It's going to take a couple weeks to get this completely figured out."

"I know," I say sympathetically, laying back so my head is next to his, and looking at the ceiling. "You know I'm going to be with you every step of the way in this, right? And that I'd have been with you even if you'd still have been a Ranger?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping, but didn't want to presume…" he says quietly, but fm the wicked grin currently spreading across his face he's more than pleased. "You know it's going to be hell dating a science teacher, right? Even without the added workload of being a ranger, there's all that marking, and wearing blazers."

"Yeah, and the hundreds of holiday days you guys get, my heart bleeds," I say sarcastically. "I feel more sorry for you, you're the one dating somebody who's unemployed. I'll be hanging around all day, taunting you with my lack of things to do while you're marking your fabled pop quizzes."

"Unemployed, really?" Tommy asks startledly, bringing a sudden halt to the teasing and lifting his head off the back of the couch. "What happened?"

"I quit," I shrug, and take another sip of my coffee. "Aisha suggested training as a paramedic, but I don't know. I've got some money saved up, so I have some time to decide."

"Oh well. That just means you'll have more time to have my dinner on the table by the time I get home from school," Tommy says nonchalantly, and looks at me innocently when I hit him on the arm. "What? I'm providing tasks for the unemployed, there's no need to hit me!"

"I know you're feeling better when you start making fun of me," I pout, when inside I'm elated. I meant it 100 when I said I'd be behind Tommy every step of the way no matter what happened, but is it possible that we finally have a shot at a normal life?

Somehow, he manages to get my attention back by kissing me again, only this time it definitely isn't on the top of the head. A long, luxurious kiss, which only serves to throw all thoughts of hitting him straight out of my mind, it simply makes me think that I don't care whether or not we have a normal, or a unique life, as long as we're together…

"So, have I done enough to earn a dinner yet?" Tommy asks when he finally pulls away from me, although he manages to leave his wandering hands exactly where they are, in a precarious position underneath the hem of my top and right next to where I'm particularly ticklish. I wonder if he remembers…

"Maybe a cup of coffee," I demur, "but not quite enough for a whole meal. You know, there's all that potato peeling to do, and I don't really consider myself a housewife. I would need a hell of a lot of persuading."

He grins a split second before pouncing and tickling me viciously on the sides. I scream loudly and jump up from the sofa, hoping to run away as far as possible without leaving his side. I run upstairs, not knowing where I'm going but having a pretty good idea.

And as I almost fall up the stairs, and eventually get caught by my stronger and faster companion, I know we're going to be just fine.

Author's notes: I'm aware of the whole Trent's father/Mesogog plot hole. That will be resolved in the upcoming epilogue, as well as the Rocky/Aisha problem, and sorting out Kim's career. It should be out in the next week, all being well. Please review, all comments are much appreciated!


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